Liberals and conservatives disagree on basic facts and regularly misgauge the accuracy of politicized information. Is it because they hold fundamentally different beliefs or are they just pretending? One explanation for why people accept ideologically welcome misinformation is that they are insincere. The other, that they really hold different beliefs about the world. We tested both explanations in three experimental studies in which participants where monetarily incentivized to assess the veracity of previously unseen true and false messages.
Results show that ideological differences in beliefs cannot be fully eliminated even by strong monetary incentives. 66 to 78% of partisan differences in accuracy assessment persisted. These differences in beliefs hamper individuals’ ability to identify true from false content. With people accepting losses in payment exceeding 7 US dollars, much belief in misinformation appears sincere.
Important policy implications arise from this result: Accountability measures targeting online users’ good platform behavior will have limited impact because they cannot correct ideological differences in beliefs unless individuals themselves are aware of it. The misinformation policy challenge therefore is not one of inducing good behavior but one of correcting false beliefs.
