This summary is provided by the IPR Behavioral Insights Research Center
Dr. Simone Mariconda and colleagues examined how fake news influenced individuals’ judgment and purchasing intentions toward an organization. The study defined the following terms:
— Fake news: fabricated information promoted on social media to deceive the public for ideological and/or financial gain.
— First-order judgments: an individual’s personal judgment of an organization.
— Second-order judgments: an individual’s belief about the judgments of an organization at the collective level.
Three separate experiments were conducted from August 2022 to August 2023 with 799 total participants.
Key findings include:
1.) Individuals were more likely to believe fake news about an organization if it had a negative reputation.
2.) When an organization’s reputation was positive, the fake news surrounding the organization was deemed inconsistent.
3.) Fake news had a more detrimental effect on second-order judgments than first-order judgments, especially when the organization had a positive reputation.
4.) Individuals tend to align their personal judgments about an organization targeted by fake news with the judgments of others.
Read the full study here
