University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Significant warning effect where headlines with warnings were seen as less accurate than false headlines without warnings
- Significant implied truth effect where participants rated false headlines without warnings to be more accurate than control headlines that were either true or false
- Implied truth effect was almost 1/3 as large as warning effect 
- Did not observe any backfire effect and participants did not believe in false headlines with warnings that aligned with their beliefs prior to the study 
- Overall, participants were more likely to believe in true rather than false headlines 
- Results matched up with initial hypotheses that warning effect induces participants to rate tagged headlines as false but false headlines without warnings to be true because 21.5% of the participants assumed untagged headlines had already been fact-checked

The implied truth effect: Attaching warnings to a subset of fake news headlines increases perceived accuracy of headlines without warnings - Study 1 Results

Pennycook, G., Bear, A., Collins, E. T., & Rand, D. G. (2020). The implied truth effect: Attaching warnings to a subset of fake news headlines increases perceived accuracy of headlines without warnings. Management Science, 66(11), 4944-4957. https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.2019.3478

The implied truth effect: Attaching warnings to a subset of fake news headlines increases perceived accuracy of headlines without warnings

The implied truth effect: Attaching warnings to a subset of fake news headlines increases perceived accuracy of headlines without warnings - Study 1 Results Figure

The implied truth effect: Attaching warnings to a subset of fake news headlines increases perceived accuracy of headlines without warnings - Study 1 Warning Figure

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