Department of Psychology, School of the Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK.
Sci Rep. 2024 Feb 20;14(1):4205. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-54030-y.
Although misinformation exposure takes place within a social context, significant conclusions have been drawn about misinformation susceptibility through studies that largely examine judgements in a social vacuum. Bridging the gap between social influence research and the cognitive science of misinformation, we examine the mechanisms through which social context impacts misinformation susceptibility across 5 experiments (N = 20,477). We find that social cues only impact individual judgements when they influence perceptions of wider social consensus, and that source similarity only biases news consumers when the source is high in credibility. Specifically, high and low engagement cues ('likes') reduced misinformation susceptibility relative to a control, and endorsement cues increased susceptibility, but discrediting cues had no impact. Furthermore, political ingroup sources increased susceptibility if the source was high in credibility, but political outgroup sources had no effect relative to a control. This work highlights the importance of studying cognitive processes within a social context, as judgements of (mis)information change when embedded in the social world. These findings further underscore the need for multifaceted interventions that take account of the social context in which false information is processed to effectively mitigate the impact of misinformation on the public.
尽管错误信息的暴露发生在社会背景中，但通过大量在社会真空环境下进行的研究，已经得出了关于错误信息易感性的重要结论。为了弥合社会影响研究和错误信息认知科学之间的差距，我们通过 5 项实验（N=20477）研究了社会环境影响错误信息易感性的机制。我们发现，只有当社会线索影响到对更广泛社会共识的看法时，它们才会影响个人判断，而只有当来源可信度高时，来源相似性才会使新闻消费者产生偏见。具体来说，高参与度和低参与度线索（“点赞”）相对于对照组降低了错误信息的易感性，而认可线索则增加了易感性，而质疑线索则没有影响。此外，如果来源可信度高，那么政治内群体来源会增加易感性，但政治外群体来源相对于对照组则没有影响。这项工作强调了在社会背景下研究认知过程的重要性，因为（错误）信息的判断在嵌入社会世界时会发生变化。这些发现进一步强调了需要采取多方面的干预措施，考虑到错误信息被处理的社会背景，以有效减轻错误信息对公众的影响。
