Thinking Hard, Thinking Smart: How News Users’ Cognitive Traits Guide Their Responses to Fact-Checks

The efficacy of fact-checks for correcting misbeliefs has been a subject of debate, partially because people tend to assume what is being told is true upon encountering misinformation, which heightens resistance to corrective information they encounter later. The current study examined how the truth bias might affect individuals’ responses to falsifying and verifying fact-checks, and if individuals’ cognitive traits moderate such effects. Overall, participants (N = 988) were more likely to judge news articles to be true than false in the absence of counter-evidence, suggesting the operation of truth bias. Fact-check messages that falsify, rather than verify, the checked claims had stronger influence on perceived truthfulness of the checked claims, attesting to the value of disconfimatory evidence. Individuals’ cognitive motivation (i.e., need for cognition) and ability (i.e., cognitive reflection) jointly shaped their reactions to fact-checks, with those high on both being more receptive to the fact-check verdicts than others.