Thread by @GordPennycook, There have been a few papers now showing that "fake news" (fabricated/false [...]

There have been a few papers now showing that "fake news" (fabricated/false news) is not as common as people thought. I& #39;ve answered Q& #39;s about this in the past (wrt my research on the topic).

Here& #39;s my take: Fake news is just a salient e.g. of a larger category of content

1/7 https://twitter.com/BrendanNyhan/status/1247143760351412225">https://twitter.com/BrendanNy...

https://twitter.com/BrendanNyhan/status/1247143760351412225

My research (with @DG_Rand and others) has taken a cognitive science perspective for this very reason. What we learn about the underlying mechanisms that lead people to believe and share fake news is likely to inform us about misinfo, falsehoods, politics, etc more broadly.

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For example, we (with @robross) find very similar results in terms of the importance of analytic thinking for hyperpartisan misleading news (extremely common) as we do for political fake news (not common): https://psyarxiv.com/cgsx6/

3/7">https://psyarxiv.com/cgsx6/&qu...

Beyond “fake news”: The role of analytic thinking in the detection of inaccuracy and partisan bias...

Why is misleading partisan content believed and shared? An influential account posits that political partisanship pervasively biases reasoning, such that engaging in analytic thinking exacerbates...

https://psyarxiv.com/cgsx6/

In a related example, work with @MohsenMosleh and @AaArechar found that analytic thinking is not just associated with sharing fake news, but with the overall quality of the news content one shares on twitter (plus lots of other stuff) https://psyarxiv.com/qaswn

4/7">https://psyarxiv.com/qaswn&quo...

Digital Fingerprints of Cognitive Reflection

Social media is playing an increasingly large role in everyday life. Thus, it is of both scientific and practical interest to understand behavior on social media platforms. Furthermore, social media...

https://psyarxiv.com/qaswn

One of the key theoretical contributions of our fake news work (IMO) is that it shows how politics does not seem to drive *reasoning* per se. We find evidence for this (with @Ben_Tappin) in common motivating reasoning paradigms as well: https://psyarxiv.com/yuzfj/ ">https://psyarxiv.com/yuzfj/&qu...

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Rethinking the link between cognitive sophistication and politically motivated reasoning

Partisan disagreement is a salient feature of contemporary American politics. A surprising but robust aspect of this disagreement is that cognitively sophisticated opposing partisans tend to disagree...

https://psyarxiv.com/yuzfj/

Last e.g.: Our previous work showed that prior exposure to a fake news headline increases later belief in that headline. In a collab with @Paul_Seli & his lab, we found that repetition increases belief for falsehoods from Trump *even among Democrats* https://psyarxiv.com/9evzc/

6/7">https://psyarxiv.com/9evzc/&qu...

"I've said it before and I will say it again": Repeating statements made by Donald Trump increases...

Fact-checking organizations have reported that Donald Trump is prone to repeating patently false statements. Previous research has shown that repetition increases perceived truthfulness of even...

https://psyarxiv.com/9evzc/

These e.g. (IMO) highlight the utility of the cognitive approach. If you can form an (even broad) understanding of the underlying processes - in addition to the intricacies of the content - the research ought to be applicable to other domains.

That& #39;s the goal, anyway!

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