Abstract
Numbers can convey critical information about political issues, yet statistics are sometimes cited incorrectly by political actors. Drawing on real-world examples of numerical misinformation, the current study provides a first test of the anchoring bias in the context of news consumption. Anchoring describes how evidently wrong and even irrelevant numbers might change people’s judgments. Results of a survey experiment with a sample of N = 413 citizens indicate that even when individuals see a retraction and distrust the presented misinformation, they stay biased toward the initially seen inaccurate number.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 368–389 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly |
| Volume | 99 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 11 Jun 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2022 |
UN SDGs
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 508007 Communication science
Keywords
- ADJUSTMENT
- ATTITUDES
- BELIEFS
- CONSEQUENCES
- CONTINUED INFLUENCE
- JUDGMENTS
- NUMERACY
- PERSPECTIVE
- PREFERENCES
- UNCERTAINTY
- anchoring
- experiment
- immigration
- misinformation
- numbers
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