Does Reflection Increase Accuracy Rather Than Bias in the Assessments of Political Fake News

Abstract

The literature emphasizes two theoretical frameworks to explain the psychological mechanisms underlying belief in political fake news: motivated vs. reflective reasoning. The motivated reasoning account asserts that individuals are predisposed to accept fake news aligned with their political identity, with reflection further entrenching such beliefs through an identity-protective function. Conversely, the reflective reasoning account argues that reflection improves accuracy by inducing a cognitive decoupling effect, thereby diminishing the acceptance of fake news. However, existing research has not definitively established the causal effect of reflection due to methodological limitations, including reliance on correlational studies and the ineffectiveness of manipulation techniques to activate reflection. In light of these shortcomings, we conducted a high-powered and preregistered experiment employing a strong reflection manipulation (i.e., debiasing training) and equally representing American Democrats and Republicans. Our findings indicate that individuals from both political affiliations are prone to believing and disseminating politically aligned fake news via social media. Despite employing a stronger reflection manipulation in contrast to past research, we failed to replicate the mitigating effect of the reflection on the acceptance of fake news. We observed that reflection reduced Democrats' willingness to spread fake news, yet it did not affect Republicans. These outcomes underscore the significant role of identity in the assessment of fake news and reveal that the mitigating effect of reflection is contingent upon an individual's identity group.