Happiness and surprise are associated with worse truth discernment of COVID-19 headlines among social media users in Nigeria
Name
rosenzweig_happiness_surprise_COVID_19_nigeria_20210810.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.28 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
284da5360c2e4b49312204df08de11ca
Author(s)
Rosenzweig, Leah R
Bago, Bence
Berinsky, Adam J
Rand, David G
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review
Publisher
Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy
Citation
Rosenzweig, Leah R, Bago, Bence, Berinsky, Adam J and Rand, David G. 2021. "Happiness and surprise are associated with worse truth discernment of COVID-19 headlines among social media users in Nigeria." Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Do emotions we experience after reading headlines help us discern true from false information or cloud our judgement? Understanding whether emotions are associated with distinguishing truth from fiction and sharing information has implications for interventions designed to curb the spread of misinformation. Among 1,341 Facebook users in Nigeria, we find that emotions—specifically happiness and surprise—are associated with greater belief in and sharing of false, relative to true, COVID-19 headlines. Respondents who are older are more reflective, and do not support the ruling party are better at discerning true from false COVID-19 information.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.37016/MR-2020-75
