Social Identities Increase Susceptibility to Congruent Misinformation: Testing Accuracy-Norm and Identity Metacognitive Interventions

Abstract

Cognitive processes underlying beliefs are central to the adoption of misinformation, yet how social identities shape them remains relatively underexplored. In a preregistered experiment (N = 455), we tested whether judgements of misinformation varied with identity strength across political, ethnic, sexual and religious domains. Participants rated false stimuli and were randomly assigned to a control, accuracy-norms, or identity metacognitive intervention condition. We observed greater endorsement of misinformation congruent with group values, often hinging on strength of identification. For conservative, ethnic and sexual identities, group differences were exacerbated at higher identity strength, whereas liberal and religious differences were equal across identity strengths. An accuracy-norm and a novel metacognitive intervention designed to elicit awareness, motivation and regulation of identity bias produced no reliable reductions across domains. Our findings suggest identity-congruent beliefs are pervasive and largely resistant to single-shot interventions. This highlights the difficulty of addressing identity-driven misinformation with brief interventions.