The Role of Group Identity and Issue Type in Predicting Misinformation

The present study focuses on political and non-political (scientific) issues and compares the effects of belief accuracy in two types of misinformation. Drawing upon the Identity-based Model of Political Belief (Van Bavel & Pereira, 2018), we argue that political information implies partisan identities; thus, political misinformation might be more prone to the political group identity effect compared to the non-political misinformation. We expect that political group identification will be negatively associated with belief accuracy in political misinformation (i.e., higher motivated directional reasoning) (H1), while it is unrelated to belief accuracy in non-political (scientific) misinformation (H2). We tested these hypotheses utilizing representative survey data from Turkey (n=1016) and South Korea (n=1000). Specifically, we tested how political group identification and political identification strength are related to political (issues on economy and immigration) and scientific (GM foods, Vaccines, Climate Change) issues. Across two contexts, we found that party identification matters mainly for the political misinformation. We discuss findings in the light of literature discussing issue variance in misinformation, identity-based resistance in correcting misinformation, and politicization of non-political issues such as climate change.