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Date of Award

Summer 2025

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Department or Program Affiliation

Western Washington University

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Hyman, Ira E.

Second Advisor

Lehman, Barbara J.

Third Advisor

Lemm, Kristi M., 1971-

Abstract

Disinformation may have a variety of effects on an audience. Disinformation may convince people to adopt that false belief. Disinformation may also create doubt concerning true information and lead people to be less convinced there is an agreed upon position. In this study, we examined how flooding individuals with conflicting information about controversial topics affected what they believed to be true and their belief that there was a social consensus. We presented some people with true information, some with false information, and others with a mix of true and false information. We found that individuals presented with one-sided information (i.e., true or false) consistently rated information from the perspective they were shown and had more confidence in an agreed upon expert consensus. In contrast, individuals presented with both sides were less confident in true information and that a consensus exists. Flooding people with a mix of disinformation and true information can muddy the waters, making it harder to discern the truth.

Type

Text

Keywords

disinformation, false balance, truth, social consensus

Publisher

Western Washington University

OCLC Number

1536407793

Subject – LCSH

Disinformation; Truth; Consensus (Social sciences); Social contract

Format

application/pdf

Genre/Form

masters theses

Language

English

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

Rights Statement

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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