Why retractions of numerical misinformation fail: The anchoring effect of inaccurate numbers in the news
- Autor(en)
- Marlis Stubenvoll, Jörg Matthes
- Abstrakt
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.
- Organisation(en)
- Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
- Journal
- Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
- Band
- 99
- Seiten
- 368–389
- Anzahl der Seiten
- 22
- ISSN
- 1077-6990
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990211021800
- Publikationsdatum
- 06-2021
- Peer-reviewed
- Ja
- ÖFOS 2012
- 508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft
- Schlagwörter
- ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
- Communication
- Link zum Portal
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/why-retractions-of-numerical-misinformation-fail-the-anchoring-effect-of-inaccurate-numbers-in-the-news(0872e188-6701-43fa-92eb-fe141cda41fb).html