Trial reportCognitive research: principles and implications2021
The role of analytical reasoning and source credibility on the evaluation of real and fake full-length news articles.
Trial report in Cognitive research: principles and implications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Spotting false news and doubting true news: a systematic review and meta-analysis of news judgements.Nature human behaviour · 2025Pooled it
- Is this real? Susceptibility to deepfakes in machines and humans.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2026Article
- The persuasive effects of social cues and source effects on misinformation susceptibility.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The relation between authoritarian leadership and belief in fake news.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Hungarian, lazy, and biased: the role of analytic thinking and partisanship in fake news discernment on a Hungarian representative sample.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Financial Fraud and Deception in Aging.Advances in geriatric medicine and research · 2023Article
- Distractions, analytical thinking and falling for fake news: A survey of psychological factors.Humanities & social sciences communications · 2023Review
- Evaluation of misinformation among pro-Ukrainian Latvians - the role of prior attitude, analytical thinking, and emotions.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Review
- Aging in an "infodemic": The role of analytical reasoning, affect, and news consumption frequency on news veracity detection.Journal of experimental psychology. Applied · 2022Article
- Fake news: Why do we believe it?Joint bone spine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimPrevious research has focused on accuracy associated with real and fake news presented in the form of news headlines only, which does not capture the rich context news is frequently encountered in real life. Additionally, while previous studies on evaluation of real and fake news have mostly focused on characteristics of the evaluator (i.e., analytical reasoning), characteristics of the news stimuli (i.e., news source credibility) and the interplay between the two have been largely ignored. To address these research gaps, this project examined the role of analytical reasoning and news source credibility on evaluation of real and fake full-length news story articles. The project considered both accuracy and perceived credibility ratings as outcome variables, thus qualifying previous work focused solely on news detection accuracy.
methodWe conducted two independent but parallel studies, with Study 2 as a direct replication of Study 1, employing the same design but in a larger sample (Study 1: N = 292 vs. Study 2: N = 357). In both studies, participants viewed 12 full-length news articles (6 real, 6 fake), followed by prompts to evaluate each article's veracity and credibility. Participants were randomly assigned to view articles with a credible or non-credible source and completed the Cognitive Reflection Test as well as short demographic questions.
findingsConsistent across both studies, higher analytical reasoning was associated with greater fake news accuracy, while analytical reasoning was not associated with real news accuracy. In addition, in both studies, higher analytical reasoning was associated with lower perceived credibility for fake news, while analytical reasoning was not associated with perceived credibility for real news. Furthermore, lower analytical reasoning was associated with greater accuracy for real (but not fake) news from credible compared to non-credible sources, with this effect only detected in Study 2.
conclusionsThe novel results generated in this research are discussed in light of classical vs. naturalistic accounts of decision-making as well as cognitive processes underlying news articles evaluation. The results extend previous findings that analytical reasoning contributes to fake news detection to full-length news articles. Furthermore, news-related cues such as the credibility of the news source systematically affected discrimination ability between real and fake news.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.