Cognitive Drivers of Misinformation Belief and Sharing on Social Media: A Cross-National Comparison

Different cognitive predispositions have been proposed for why individuals believe in and share false information on social media. Drawing from a framework of cognitive drivers of false beliefs, this study examines the roles of analytical thinking, news literacy, and conspiratorial thinking in the veracity discernment of social media news posts and willingness to share them. Respondents in the U.S. U.K. and Hong Kong (China) were randomly exposed to ten social media news posts (five factual and five false headlines). Results showed that analytical thinking improved discernment of true and false headlines among the U.K. and Hong Kong participants, and conspiratorial thinking increased the perceived veracity of false news in the U.S. and U.K. News literacy increased discernment of true and false headlines across all samples, such that true posts were perceived as more accurate and false posts as more inaccurate. The findings demonstrate that the same cognitive drivers explain vulnerability to and resilience against misinformation in different cross-national contexts.