The impact of personality in recognizing disinformation
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-04-2019-0115 |
| Published date | 19 December 2019 |
| Date | 19 December 2019 |
| Pages | 181-191 |
| Author | Colleen Wolverton,David Stevens |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
The impact of personality in
recognizing disinformation
Colleen Wolverton and David Stevens
Department of Management,
University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, Louisiana, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate and quantify the effects of personality traits, as defined
by the five-factor model (FFM) on an individual’s ability to detect fake news. The findings of this study are
increasingly important because of the proliferation of social media news stories and the exposure of
organizational stakeholders and business decision makers to a tremendous amount of information, including
information that is not correct (a.k.a. disinformation).
Design/methodology/approach –The data were collected utilizing the snowball sampling methodology.
Students in an Management Information Systems course completed the survey. Since a diverse sample was
sought, survey participants were instructed to recruit another individual from a different generation. The
survey questions of the FFM identify particular personality traits in respondents. Survey respondents were
given a collection of nine news stories, five of which were false and four that were true. The number of
correctly identified stories was recorded, and the effect of personality traits on the ability of survey
respondents to identify fake news was calculated using eta-squared and the effect size index.
Findings –Each of the five factors in the FFM demonstrated an effect on an individual’s ability to detect
disinformation. In fact, every single variable studied had at least a small effect size index, with one exception:
gender, which had basically no effect. Therefore, each variable studied (with the exception of gender)
explained a portion of the variability in the number of correctly identified false news stories. Specifically, this
quantitative research demonstrates that individuals with the following personality traits are better able to
identify disinformation: closed to experience or cautious, introverted, disagreeable or unsympathetic,
unconscientious or undirected and emotionally stable.
Originality/value –There is scant research on an i ndividual’s ability to detect false news stories,
although some research has been conducted on the ability to detect phishing (a type of social
engineering attack to obt ain funds or personal information fro m the person being deceived). The result s of
this study enable corp orations to determine which of the ir customers, investors and othe r stakeholders are
most likely to be deceived by di sinformation. With this informa tion, they can better prepare for and c ombat
the impacts of misinformat ion on their organization, and thereby avoid the negative fi nancial impacts
that result.
Keywords Social media, Disinformation, Five-factor model (FFM) of personality, Technology disruption
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
With the growth of online social media and the decline in reputable news outlets, more
people are getting their news online. Although these changes have made the consumption
of news more accessible, it has also enabled the flourishing of news stories with
questionable validity (Cerf, 2017). Thus, new terms have been introduced to our
vocabulary such as “alternative facts”and “fake news,”which was declared the word of
the year (Bowerman, 2017). Almost half of the social media users in the USA have seen
falsenewsstoriesand“fake news”has been blamed for influencing elections around
the world (Neuman, 2018; Parks, 2017) in addition to impacting activist movements
(Sydell, 2017; Lewandowsky et al., 2013).
Disinformation is not just a problem for media outlets. Beyond traditional media and
social media companies, businesses have been greatly impacted by false news stories.
Starbucks, Ulta and Costco were all targeted with false news stories that could have Online Information Review
Vol. 44 No. 1, 2020
pp. 181-191
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-04-2019-0115
Received 2 April 2019
Revised 13 August 2019
Accepted 7 November 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1468-4527.htm
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
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Impact of
personality
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