Illusory Superiority About Misinformation Detection and Its Relationship to Knowledge and Fact-Checking Intentions: Evidence from 18 Countries
Cognitive biases are known to influence how people react to misinformation, and the way they use various strategies to navigate the current media ecosystem. While confirmation bias and the third person effect have been subject to many studies about the effects of misinformation, little is known abou...
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| Published in | Mass communication & society pp. 1 - 20 |
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| Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
2025
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| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
| ISSN | 1520-5436 1532-7825 |
| DOI | 10.1080/15205436.2025.2495206 |
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| Abstract | Cognitive biases are known to influence how people react to misinformation, and the way they use various strategies to navigate the current media ecosystem. While confirmation bias and the third person effect have been subject to many studies about the effects of misinformation, little is known about the impact of illusory superiority, a self-enhancement (or self-related) bias, on misinformation detection. To address this, the current study investigates illusory superiority bias about misinformation detection in 18 democracies drawing on survey data (N = 26,000). Among other things, the results show (1) that people overestimate their capacity to detect misinformation in comparison to others in all countries included in this study; (2) that the more knowledgeable people are, the stronger this particular cognitive bias about
misinformation detection is; and, (3) that illusory superiority is positively correlated with (self-declared) fact-checking behaviors. |
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| AbstractList | Cognitive biases are known to influence how people react to misinformation, and the way they use various strategies to navigate the current media ecosystem. While confirmation bias and the third person effect have been subject to many studies about the effects of misinformation, little is known about the impact of illusory superiority, a self-enhancement (or self-related) bias, on misinformation detection. To address this, the current study investigates illusory superiority bias about misinformation detection in 18 democracies drawing on survey data (N = 26,000). Among other things, the results show (1) that people overestimate their capacity to detect misinformation in comparison to others in all countries included in this study; (2) that the more knowledgeable people are, the stronger this particular cognitive bias about
misinformation detection is; and, (3) that illusory superiority is positively correlated with (self-declared) fact-checking behaviors. |
| Author | Koc-Michalska, Karolina Hopmann, David Nicolas Schemer, Christian Aalberg, Toril Corbu, Nicoleta Halagiera, Denis Strömbäck, Jesper Matthes, Jörg Stanyer, James Jin, Soyeon |
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| SubjectTerms | cognitive biases comparative research fact-checking illusory superiority Media and Communications Medie-, kommunikations-, och informationsvetenskaper misinformation |
| Title | Illusory Superiority About Misinformation Detection and Its Relationship to Knowledge and Fact-Checking Intentions: Evidence from 18 Countries |
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