Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-05T18:52:13.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conceptual Replication of Four Key Findings about Factual Corrections and Misinformation during the 2020 US Election: Evidence from Panel-Survey Experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2023

Alexander Coppock Open the ORCID record for Alexander Coppock [Opens in a new window] ,
Kimberly Gross ,
Ethan Porter Open the ORCID record for Ethan Porter [Opens in a new window] ,
Emily Thorson  and
Thomas J. Wood Open the ORCID record for Thomas J. Wood [Opens in a new window]
Alexander Coppock
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Yale University, USA
Kimberly Gross
Affiliation:
School of Media and Public Affairs and Department of Political Science, George Washington University, USA
Ethan Porter*
Affiliation:
School of Media and Public Affairs and Department of Political Science, George Washington University, USA
Emily Thorson
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Syracuse University, USA
Thomas J. Wood
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the final two months of the 2020 US election, we conducted eight panel experiments to evaluate the immediate and medium-term effects of misinformation and factual corrections. Our results corroborate four sets of existing findings: fact-checks reliably improve factual accuracy, while misinformation degrades it; effects of fact-checks on belief accuracy endure, though they fade with time; effects on attitudes are minuscule; and there are important partisan asymmetries. We also offer one new empirical finding suggesting that effect heterogeneities by personality type and cognitive style may reflect attention paid to treatments. Our study confirms that the fundamental push and pull of misinformation and factual corrections on political beliefs holds even in electoral settings as saturated with mistruths as the 2020 US election.

Keywords

misinformationfactual corrections2020 US election
Type
Letter
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , October 2023 , pp. 1328 - 1341
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berinsky, A (2015) Rumors and health care reform: experiments in political misinformation. British Journal of Political Science 47, 241–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, JM et al. (2022) The ephemeral effects of fact-checks on COVID-19 misperceptions in the United States, Great Britain and Canada. Nature Human Behaviour 6(2), 236–243. Available from https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01278-3CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chan, M-pS et al. (2017) Debunking: a meta-analysis of the psychological efficacy of messages countering misinformation. Psychological Science 28(11), 1531–1546.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coppock, A, Gross, K, Porter, E, Thorson, E and Wood, TJ (2023) “Replication Data for: Conceptual Replication of Four Key Findings about Factual Corrections and Misinformation During the 2020 U.S. Election: Evidence from Panel Survey Experiments”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WQXZUP, Harvard Dataverse, V2, UNF:6:ll8kQCpQfOdAIKguhZyKNA== [fileUNF].CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Culliford, E (2019) Facebook Announces Steps to Clamp Down on Misinformation Ahead of 2020 Election. Reuters. Available from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-facebook/facebook-announces-steps-to-clamp-down-on-misinformation-ahead-of-2020-election-idUSKBN1X022SGoogle Scholar
Dillard, J (2020) Ocasio-Cortez Reveals Past Sexual Assault, Faults GOP over Riot. Bloomberg. Available from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-02/ocasio-cortez-accuses-gop-critics-of-diminishing-riot-traumaGoogle Scholar
Edelson, L et al. (2021) Far-Right News Sources on Facebook More Engaging. Available from https://medium.com/cybersecurity-for-democracy/far-right-news-sources-on-facebook-more-engaging-e04a01efae90Google Scholar
Einstein, KL and Hochschild, J (2015) Do Facts Matter? Information and Misinformation in American Politics. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, S (2020) “Unreliable” News Sources Got More Traction in 2020. Available from https://www.axios.com/unreliable-news-sources-social-media-engagement-297bf046-c1b0-4e69-9875-05443b1dca73.htmlGoogle Scholar
Gerber, AS et al. (2011a) The Big Five personality traits in the political arena. Annual Review of Political Science 14(1), 265–287. Available from https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051010-111659CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, AS et al. (2011b) Personality traits and the consumption of political information. American Politics Research 39(1), 32–84. Available from https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X10381466CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, MH (2020) Self-awareness of political knowledge. Political Behavior 42(1), 305–326. Available from https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9499-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graves, L (2016) Deciding What's True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guay, B et al. (2020) Examining Partisan Asymmetries in Fake News Sharing and the Efficacy of Accuracy Prompt Interventions. OSF Preprints. Available from https://psyarxiv.com/y762kGoogle Scholar
Guess, A, Nagler, J and Tucker, J (2019) Less than you think: prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook. Science Advances 5(1). Available from https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guess, AM et al. (2020) “Fake News” May Have Limited Effects beyond Increasing Beliefs in False Claims. Available from https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunther, R, Beck, PA and Nisbet, EC (2019) “Fake news” and the defection of 2012 Obama voters in the 2016 presidential election. Electoral Studies 61, 102030. Available from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379418303019CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haglin, K (2017) The limitations of the backfire effect. Research & Politics 4(3), 2053168017716547. Available from https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168017716547CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamieson, KH (2018) Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President: What We Don't, Can't, and Do Know. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jennings, J and Stroud, NJ (2021) Asymmetric adjustment: partisanship and correcting misinformation on Facebook. New Media & Society, 14614448211021720. Available from https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211021720Google Scholar
Kessler, G (2020) Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth: The President's Falsehoods, Misleading Claims and Flat-Out Lies. New York, NY: Scribner.Google Scholar
Kuklinski, JH et al. (2000) Misinformation and the currency of democratic citizenship. Journal of Politics 62(3), 790–816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leding, JK and Antonio, L (2019) Need for cognition and discrepancy detection in the misinformation effect. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 31(4), 409–415. Available from https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2019.1626400CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenz, GS (2012) Follow the Leader? How Voters Respond to Politicians’ Policies and Performance. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewandowsky, S et al. (2020) The Debunking Handbook 2020. Available from https://sks.to/db2020Google Scholar
Loomba, S et al. (2021) Measuring the impact of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on vaccination intent in the UK and USA. Nature Human Behaviour 5, 337–348. Available from https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01056-1CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nyhan, B (2020) Facts and myths about misperceptions. Journal of Economic Perspectives 34(August), 220–236. Available from https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.34.3.220CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyhan, B et al. (2019) Taking fact-checks literally but not seriously? The effects of journalistic fact-checking on factual beliefs and candidate favorability. Political Behavior 42, 939–960.Google Scholar
Pasek, J, Sood, G and Krosnick, JA (2015) Misinformed about the Affordable Care Act? Leveraging certainty to assess the prevalence of misperceptions. Journal of Communication 65(4), 660–673. Available from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcom.12165CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, D and Rand, DG (2019) Lazy, not biased: susceptibility to partisan fake news is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning. Cognition 188, 39–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, G et al. (2021) Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online. Nature 592(7855), 590–595. Available from https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03344-2CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Porter, E and Wood, TJ (2019) False Alarm: The Truth about Political Mistruths in the Trump Era. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, E and Wood, TJ (2021) The global effectiveness of fact-checking: evidence from simultaneous experiments in Argentina, Nigeria, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(37), e2104235118. Available from https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2104235118CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Porter, E and Wood, TJ (2022) Misinformation on the Facebook news feed: experimental evidence. Journal of Politics 84, 1812–1817. Available from https://osf.io/r3mvw/CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, E, Velez, Y and Wood, TJ (2022) Correcting COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation in Ten Countries. Available from https://osf.io/4stbm/CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rathje, S (2022) Letter to the Editors of Psychological Science: Meta-analysis Reveals that Accuracy Nudges Have Little to No Effect for U.S. Conservatives: Regarding Pennycook et al. Available from https://psyarxiv.com/945na/CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, BF and Luks, S (2018) Misinformation or expressive responding? What an inauguration crowd can tell us about the source of political misinformation in surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly 82(2), 135–147. Available from https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfx042CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shin, J and Thorson, K (2017) Partisan selective sharing: the biased diffusion of fact-checking messages on social Media. Journal of Communication 67(2), 233–255. Available from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcom.12284CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swire, B, DeGutis, J and Lazer, D (2020) Searching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design Considerations. PsyArXiv. Available from https://psyarxiv.com/ba2kc/Google Scholar
Swire, B et al. (2017) Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon. Royal Society Open Science 4(3), 160802. Available from https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rsos.160802CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
US House Committee on Energy and Commerce Staff (2021) Hearing on “Fanning the Flames: Disinformation and Extremism in the Media.” Available from https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF16/20210224/111229/HHRG-117-IF16-20210224-SD002.pdfGoogle Scholar
Walker, M and Gottfried, J (2019) Republicans Far More Likely Than Democrats to Say Fact-Checkers Tend to Favor One Side. Pew Research Center. Available from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/27/republicans-far-more-likely-than-democrats-to-say-fact-checkers-tend-to-favor-one-side/Google Scholar
Walter, N et al. (2019) Fact-checking: a meta-analysis of what works and for whom. Political Communication 37, 350–375.Google Scholar
Wintersieck, AL (2017) Debating the truth: the impact of fact-checking during electoral debates. American Politics Research 45(2), 304–331. Available from https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X16686555CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, TJ and Porter, E (2018) The elusive backfire effect: mass attitudes’ steadfast factual adherence. Political Behavior 41, 135–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Coppock et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WQXZUP
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Coppock et al. supplementary material

Appendix

Download Coppock et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 6.8 MB