Individuals who were primed to think about a time in which they had little control over their life demonstrated a greater preference for attributing false information to intentional deception than those who were primed to think about a time when they had a high level of control over their life.

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Pepperdine University

Individuals who feel that they have little control over their lives are more likely to attribute fake news to intentional deception.

Threats to personal control and fake news attribution

Axt, J. R., Landau, M. J., & Kay, A. C. (2020). Fake news attributions as a source of nonspecific structure. In R. Greifeneder, M. Jaffé, E. J. Newman, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), The psychology of fake news: Accepting, sharing, and correcting misinformation (pp. 220–234). London: Routledge. 

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