Investigating the use of belief-bias to measure acceptance of false information

Abstract

Belief-bias occurs when individuals’ prior beliefs impact their ability to judge the validity (i.e., structure) of an argument such that they are predisposed to accept conclusions consistent with their prior beliefs regardless of the argument’s validity. The present study uses a minimal explanation paradigm to evaluate how United States Military Academy cadets assess the validity of arguments surrounding the pull-out from Afghanistan presented by different sources of authority. Participants exhibited a significantly greater likelihood of rejecting an invalid argument with true facts compared to accepting a valid argument with false facts, with overconfidence scores implying they were unaware of this difficulty in reasoning. We also found that participants were were more critical of arguments about US capabilities coming from civilian sources. Results from the HEXACO personality assessment showed that task performance was positively correlated with perfectionism and inquisitiveness sub-scales, implying that those high in those measures were less likely to exhibit belief-bias. Even when factoring-in these traits, results revealed a small yet significant trend for participants to reject valid arguments from their peers compared with senior military and civilian counterparts. Overall, the present study shows a differential impact of belief-bias on true vs false facts, that this is influenced by the underlying source of the argument, and that personality traits mediate these effects.