Ghezae Isaias, Jordan Jillian J, Gainsburg Izzy B, Mosleh Mohsen, Pennycook Gordon, Willer Robb, Rand David G
Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Negotiation, Organizations and Markets Unit, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA 02163, USA.
PNAS Nexus. 2024 Jul 24;3(8):pgae287. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae287. eCollection 2024 Aug.
A frequently invoked explanation for the sharing of false over true political information is that partisans are motivated by their reputations. In particular, it is often argued that by indiscriminately sharing news that is favorable to one's political party, regardless of whether it is true-or perhaps especially when it is true-partisans can signal loyalty to their group, and improve their reputations in the eyes of their online networks. Across three survey studies (total = 3,038), and an analysis of over 26,000 tweets, we explored these hypotheses by measuring the reputational benefits that people anticipate and receive from sharing different content online. In the survey studies, we showed participants actual news headlines that varied in (ⅰ) veracity, and (ⅱ) favorability to their preferred political party. Across all three studies, participants anticipated that sharing true news would bring more reputational benefits than sharing false news. Critically, while participants also expected greater reputational benefits for sharing news favorable to their party, the perceived reputation value of veracity was no smaller for more favorable headlines. We found a similar pattern when analyzing engagement on Twitter: among headlines that were politically favorable to a user's preferred party, true headlines elicited more approval than false headlines.
对于虚假政治信息比真实政治信息传播得更频繁这一现象，一个经常被提及的解释是，党派人士受自身声誉的驱使。具体而言，人们常说，党派人士不分青红皂白地分享对自己政党有利的新闻，无论其真假——或者也许尤其是在新闻为真的时候——以此表明对自己群体的忠诚，并在其网络圈子眼中提升自己的声誉。通过三项调查研究（共计3038人）以及对26000多条推文的分析，我们通过衡量人们预期并从在网上分享不同内容中获得的声誉益处，来探究这些假设。在调查研究中，我们向参与者展示了实际的新闻标题，这些标题在以下两个方面存在差异：（ⅰ）真实性，以及（ⅱ）对他们偏好政党的有利程度。在所有三项研究中，参与者预计分享真实新闻比分享虚假新闻能带来更多的声誉益处。至关重要的是，虽然参与者也预期分享对自己政党有利的新闻会带来更大的声誉益处，但对于更有利的标题而言，真实性的感知声誉价值并不更小。在分析推特上的参与度时，我们也发现了类似的模式：在政治上对用户偏好政党有利的标题中，真实标题比虚假标题获得了更多的认可。
