Journal
MEMORY & COGNITION
Volume 50, Issue 2, Pages 425-434Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.3758/s13421-021-01219-5
Keywords
misinformation; COVID-19; cognitive reflection; decision-making; classical account
Categories
Funding
- Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) scholarship
- Australian Research Council [DP180102384]
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Participants with higher levels of analytic thinking were less likely to believe in and share COVID-19 misinformation, supporting the classical account of reasoning in the context of COVID-19 misinformation and extending it to the Australian population.
The classical account of reasoning posits that analytic thinking weakens belief in COVID-19 misinformation. We tested this account in a demographically representative sample of 742 Australians. Participants completed a performance-based measure of analytic thinking (the Cognitive Reflection Test) and were randomized to groups in which they either rated the perceived accuracy of claims about COVID-19 or indicated whether they would be willing to share these claims. Half of these claims were previously debunked misinformation, and half were statements endorsed by public health agencies. We found that participants with higher analytic thinking levels were less likely to rate COVID-19 misinformation as accurate and were less likely to be willing to share COVID-19 misinformation. These results support the classical account of reasoning for the topic of COVID-19 misinformation and extend it to the Australian context.
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