Behavioral Biases on Misinformation
Date:
This project contributes experimental evidence to the discussion of how to increase fact-checking by analyzing how overconfidence and motivated reasoning affect the willingness to pay to verify whether a headline is correct. Making available the alternative of perfect verification experimentally allows us to abstract from a specific fact-checking strategy (some of them more effective and accepted than others) and focus on the potential impact of behavioral biases on the demand for fact-checking.
We present experimental results on how changes in the probability of receiving fake news affect the demand for fact-checking. We also explore how the level of government approval affects the demand for fact-checking headlines that are favorable (or not) to the government.
I presented this paper in the ESA NAM 2024.