What Drives Contradictory Results in Misinformation Research
One of the most remarkable developments of the 2016 United States (US) Presidential Election–which culminated in Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton–was the proliferation of fake news on social media.
Given the potential of fake news or misinformation to disrupt the balance in society, academic researchers turned their attention towards unearthing its psychological foundations. Consequently, several studies evaluated factors such as analytical thinking, social motivations, and the role of algorithms to analyse and evaluate why people believe and share fake news.
However, the expanding body of literature also brought with it contradictory findings and theoretical disputes over fundamental questions. Do efforts to promote news accuracy work equally well for liberals and conservatives? Does personality influence susceptibility to sharing fake news? Why do similar datasets sometimes give different results?
In their study, ISB Professor Hemant Kakkar and co-author M Asher Lawson re-examined the role of ‘conscientiousness’, one of psychology’s Big Five personality traits, in fake news sharing. The Big Five personality traits are a psychological framework that groups personality into five dimensions: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience.
Through a reanalysis of multiple studies that previously reached different conclusions, the study finds why these disagreements arise and how findings in misinformation research can be more consistent.
In this Q&A, Professor Hemant Kakkar explains the key questions his study addresses and what the data reveals about the psychology behind misinformation.
Why are researchers still divided on key issues in misinformation research?
This is partly because the misinformation ecosystem is constantly changing. For example, identification with the Republican Party was previously considered a reliable predictor of fake news sharing, but it generates inconsistent findings in newer studies. The debate is further complicated by the methodological choices of the researchers, such as how they define and measure ideology and which news items they select for analysis.
How was this investigated?
We revisited two earlier papers to find whether conscientiousness–a trait associated with being responsible, diligent, and prudent— reduces fake news sharing among conservatives. The studies had reached opposing conclusions despite being similar in design. Lawson & Kakkar (2021) (L&K) found that highly conscientious individuals were less likely to share right-wing fake news. Lin et al. (2023) (LRP) challenged this, arguing the effect appeared even with real news.
Using this as a case study, we re-analysed data from 12 previous studies, seven from L&K and five from LRP. In all studies, participants were made to choose from a mix of real and fake news stories, based on how likely they were to share them. They also shared their personality traits, political views, and demographics.
The new analysis replicated the original methods but also expanded upon them. We ran 35 separate analyses to test whether conscientiousness consistently moderated the link between political ideology and fake news sharing. We also tested whether results changed based on how ideology was measured, using indicators like support for Donald Trump in 2016, warmth toward Republicans and Democrats, social and economic conservatism, belief in God, and the type of statistical methods applied.
What did the study find?
Conscientiousness does influence fake news sharing behaviour. Individuals scoring higher on this trait consistently shared less misinformation, though the magnitude of this effect varied across different study designs. More significantly, conscientiousness can reduce the influence of political ideology on fake news sharing, but only for specific types of ideological beliefs, such as warmth toward Republicans, and support for Trump in 2016. Other measures showed weak or inconsistent associations.
Among individuals with strong conservative orientations, higher conscientiousness corresponded with substantially reduced fake news sharing. This effect was most pronounced at moderate to high levels of conservatism and absent among individuals with lower conservative identification. Notably, not all measures of ideology reflected this pattern. For example, the effect did not materialise for belief in God. It suggested that the relationship is tied more to political partisanship than to general ideological or religious beliefs.
Why did the studies reach different conclusions?
There are three main factors:
- Measures of ideology: The impact of conscientiousness on the link between ideology and fake news sharing varies depending on which ideology measures are used.
- Analytical methods: Different analytical choices, like how statistical errors are grouped, or the type of statistical model used, can lead to varying conclusions.
- Timing and content: The relevance and timing of news stories influenced results. For instance, L&K’s use of timely COVID-related misinformation strengthened the ideological link, while LRP’s use of older political stories weakened it.