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Identifying and debunking environmental-related false news stories—An experimental study

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  • Gruener, Sven

Abstract

False news stories constitute a problem for democracy since they make it hard to identify what the true state of the world is. The goal of this study is to experimentally explore who is good at identifying false news stories and to learn something about mechanisms to debunk false news stories. Both research fields are not new. However, the present study adds value to the literature by dealing with environmental topics (the bulk of existing studies on false news stories is about political topics in the US) and by analyzing news stories in the length of a small paragraph (former studies are primarily presented in the format of a Facebook post). Our main findings are: (i) Perceived familiarity increases the propensity to accept the stories as true. Actively open-minded thinking helps to distinguish between true and false. In contrast to earlier studies on false news stories, thinking deliberately (instead of spontaneously) does not help to prevent to fall for false news stories. Surprisingly, men performed slightly better than women in distinguishing between false and true. (ii) By repeating false news stories, subjects are more likely to adequately identify them later. Thus, there is no evidence for a familiarity backfire effect. However, repeating false news stories results in a decreased ability to adequately identify correct messages. A somewhat reverse, but weaker effect seems to occur when true stories are repeated: the correct identification of correct news stories is more successful, but the opposite holds for the identification of false news stories. Detailed explanations of why the false stories contain false content increases the correct identification of false news stories, but the ability to correctly identify correct news stories is detrimental.

Suggested Citation

  • Gruener, Sven, 2020. "Identifying and debunking environmental-related false news stories—An experimental study," SocArXiv zmx5p, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:zmx5p
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/zmx5p
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General

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