Who seeks and shares misinformation about politicians? Focusing on the roles of party- and politician-level social identities

Abstract

Although numerous studies have explained the flow of misinformation, finding studies that theoretically examine the psychological factors related to individuals’ information behaviours is difficult. Social media data or meta-level analyses have limitations in providing an understanding of behaviours and processes at the individual level. Accordingly, this study aims to construct a predictive model for biased information seeking and sharing as a response to misinformation, which is information without the certainty of its truth, through a survey (N = 602). Applying social psychological concepts (i.e. social identity theory), two types of social identities were proposed as key factors of biased information seeking and sharing in the research model. Our model allows forecasting of what types of individuals are more likely to skip the fact-checking process and share misinformation.