According to the Motivated System 2 Reasoning account, high deliberation when presented with misinformation results in increased polarization of political beliefs and lowered ability to distinguish the accuracy of the information.

Ohio State University, Columbus

Discourse concerning the role of deliberation in the creation of false beliefs from misinformation has been centered on two main perspectives:
- Motivated System 2 Reasoning (MS2R)
- Classical reasoning

Misinformation: Deliberative Processes

A bias in which new information that supports what we want to believe is readily accepted and information that supports what we do not want to believe is scrutinized in an effort to reduce cognitive dissonance. Motivated reasoning is very similar to confirmation bias

Motivated Reasoning

Bago, B., Rand, D. G., & Pennycook, G. (2020). Fake news, fast and slow: Deliberation reduces belief in false (but not true) news headlines. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(8), 1608–1613. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1037/xge0000729.supp (Supplemental)

Fake news, fast and slow: Deliberation reduces belief in false (but not true) news headlines

Misinformation: Motivated System 2 Reasoning (MS2R)

According to the Classical Reasoning account, high deliberation when presented with misinformation results in increased ability to distinguish the accuracy of the information while the absence of deliberation leads to false beliefs.

Misinformation: Classical Reasoning

Many predictors of beliefs in conspiracy theories correlated significantly with beliefs in fake news: congruency with political identity (PIS, LRS, LAS), dangerous worldview (DWS), normlessness (schizotypal) (DAS), randomness (WAS), conspiratorial ideation (BCTI), magical thinking (OLIFE). The findings also supported the hypothesis that people tend to believe in fake news that align with their political identity, praise one's own party, question the candiate of the opposite party (PIS) - can be explained by motivated reasoning.

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