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This project examines tests the efficacy an Internet-administered analogic perspective taking intervention. We aim to reduce anti-Semitic attitudes and online engagement with related hateful and abusive (HA) content online.

This project seeks to understand the extent to which fact-checks of false claims about electoral integrity affect perceptions of the election itself; the candidates competing; and voter turnout. We focus on perhaps the most critical mechanism for accountability in a representative democracy: election turnout. With increasing frequency, President Trump is maneuvering to engender doubt about the integrity of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and particularly of mail-in voting, in an apparent effort to depress voter turnout. Due to the pandemic and public health risks posed by in-person voting, attempts to undermine citizens’ confidence in the accuracy and authenticity of mail-in voting specifically and the election more broadly could have a substantial effect on turnout in the 2020 election. After preliminary questions assessing respondents political interest and efficacy, engagement with politics and media consumption we randomly assign them to one of two possible conditions: 1. Pure control condition 2. Six fact-checks treatment condition. Subjects in the treatment condition are exposed to six instances of misinformation and attendant corrections. We then measure intention to vote, beliefs regarding the integrity of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and demand for further fact checking. This design allows us to assess the extent to which fact checks of misleading or untrue statements by President Trump intending to undermine confidence in the integrity of the 2020 electoral process will enhance voters’ confidence in the election and their intention to vote. After the conclusion of the election, measures of our participants’ actual voting behavior will be collected in the form of vote-validation data to assess effects on turnout. To our knowledge, little prior work has focused on the effects of fact-checking on behavior. Our design will allow us to understand how fact-checking influences turnout and demand for fact-checking. Secondary analyses will probe the extent to which the participants’ partisanship and/or political awareness moderated the effect of fact checks on beliefs and behavior related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Evaluating Fact-Checks During the 2020 General Election