Fake news

Most news stories today contain some misleading, self-serving or downright false information. The news checking website Politifact for example, has various classes of falsehoods on their Truth-o-Meter.

But can consumers discern which parts of a story are false? How does identifying a false claim impact the reader’s attitude towards the whole story and the rest of the contents? Can they discern these false claims when they appear as headlines later?

In our current research program, we find that readers can usually pick out false claims in news stories – but only if they pay attention to the objectively false claims. When they think at least one claim is “false enough”, they go on to label the entire story as fake news. This label then impacts the attitudes and sharing intentions towards the other claims in the story.

Co-authors: Dr. Vinod Venkatraman, Dr. Nicole Henninger

Currently in review ; Process tracing studies in progress

The effect of Political affiliation on strategic game behavior

Do Democrats & Republicans in the US engage differently in a strategic game, based on the opponent’s political affiliation? We explore this question in the context of an incentive compatible prisoner’s dilemma game.

We find that while Democrats modulate their in-game responses based on the opponent, Republicans do not. We find that Democrats expect their out-group opponents to cooperate less with them and use this information to drive their choice. Republicans do not seem to engage in such processing.

Co-authors: Dr. Edward C Rosenthal, Dr. Vinod Venkatraman

Awaiting a process tracing study in the future