Partisan Attitudes and the Motivation behind the Spread of Misleading Information

Abstract

It is widely known that partisan attitudes drive individuals to mistakenly believe misleading information is true, resulting in the spread of misleading information. It is also possible that partisan attitudes create a gap between belief and behavior. That is, partisan attitudes lead individuals to spread misleading information even if they know that it is unlikely to be true. However, the latter possibility has not been closely examined. This study aims to fill this lacuna. We find evidence that partisan attitudes hindered the correction of mistaken beliefs, which drove individuals to spread misleading information. However, there is no evidence that partisan attitudes contribute to the spread of misleading information by widening the gap between belief and behavior.