Vulnerability to Online Political Misinformation: The Role of Non-clinical Schizotypal Traits

While rumours, lies, and propaganda are nothing new, the rise of online misinformation brings with it new challenges and concerns. Online misinformation has become particularly problematic due to its global reach and the incredible speed at which it can spread. Furthermore, it has been suggested that the propagation of online misinformation often results from the actions of regular social media users who encounter such content organically and choose to engage with it (i.e., interact via online behaviours such as commenting, “liking”, and sharing). As with any viral content hosted on social media platforms, misinformation that attracts sufficient user engagement is algorithmically promoted to others, further increasing its spread and exposing more individuals to false information. Therefore, the most concerning online misinformation is characterised not only by an ability to deceive its audience, but also an ability to entice engagement behaviour from social media users.

This doctoral project aimed to explore individual differences as predictors of vulnerability to online misinformation. Drawing upon cognitive theories of misinformation vulnerability and established research into individual differences associated with receptivity to socio-political conspiracy theories, the current project sought to explore schizotypal personality traits as potential predictors of belief and engagement toward online political misinformation. The project also sought to investigate the potential significance of specific cognitive biases associated with schizotypal cognition that might serve to facilitate this hypothesised relationship, as well as other dispositional traits related to schizotypy (e.g., nonclinical autism-like traits, the need for cognitive closure, and the expression of a conspiratorial worldview). Furthermore, the project also sought to address the potential moderating effects of schizotypal traits on established intervention techniques designed to reduce individual receptivity to online misinformation (i.e., do schizotypal traits influence intervention efficacy?).

Across four individual studies (total n = 1161), politically partisan participants from the US were recruited and exposed to political news content previously published on social media platforms (some being factually accurate, others being examples of political misinformation). Participants were asked to: 1) report their desire to engage with the online content (i.e., “like”, comment, share, or react using an emoji), and 2) rate the factual accuracy of the presented information (i.e., the extent to which they believed the presented claims to be accurate). These ratings were then used as indicators of misinformation vulnerability in subsequent analyses and explored alongside a range of other measures collected across the four studies.

Study 1 involved the recruitment of right-wing participants who completed a brief measure of schizotypal personality traits (the Schizotypal personality questionnaire – Brief Revised Updated), nonclinical autism-like traits (the Autistic Spectrum Quotient – 9), and two performance-based measures of cognitive reflection (the Cognitive Reflection Test and the Cognitive Reflection Test 2). These measures were then explored as predictors of misinformation vulnerability in a series of regression models.

In Study 2 both left and right-wing participants were recruited and asked to complete the same measures used previously in Study 1, as well as an additional performance-based measure designed to assess the presence of a “jumping to conclusions” reasoning bias (a computerised adaptation of The Beads Task). Once again, these variables were explored as predictors of misinformation vulnerability.

Study 3 focused only on right-wing participants and used a different measure of schizotypal personality traits (the Multidimensional Schizotypy Scale – Brief), alongside a brief measure of individual need for cognitive closure (Brief Need for Closure Scale) and endorsement of a generalised conspiratorial worldview (Generic Conspiracy Beliefs Scale). The relationship between these measures and misinformation vulnerability was explored using regression and mediation analyses.

Study 4 retained a focus on right-wing participants and once again included the Multidimensional Schizotypy Scale – Brief and Generic Conspiracy Beliefs Scale as variables of interest. This study’s primary goal was to explore the potential moderating influence of positive schizotypy traits on a content-flagging intervention previously demonstrated to reduce vulnerability to online misinformation. The efficacy of the intervention was first established using ANCOVA while controlling for positive schizotypy, followed by moderation analyses to assess the impact of positive schizotypy on intervention effectiveness.

The findings of the regression analyses indicated that positive schizotypal traits were a robust predictor of misinformation engagement, with greater engagement associated with elevated levels of positive schizotypy. It was also demonstrated that positive schizotypy often acted as a significant predictor of misinformation belief, however this relationship was comparatively weaker and appears to have been partially mediated by the expression of a conspiratorial worldview. Furthermore, the experimental findings of Study 4 indicated that anti-misinformation intervention techniques based on content-flagging remained effective at reducing belief and engagement towards political misinformation, regardless of an individual’s expression of positive schizotypal traits.