The present research examines processes involved in how people believe and share news posts on social media. We tested whether the relation between individuals' previous political beliefs and judging the accuracy of and willingness to share fake and true news is mediated by epistemic emotional response (surprise and interest) and perceived credibility (trustworthiness, rigorosity, impartiality). In a within-subjects experiment, we presented ten publications (5 true, 5 fake) with political content, extracted from Facebook, to 259 Portuguese participants. The results showed that fake and true news were processed in a similar way. Emotional response and perceived credibility did not only depend on the content, but also on previous beliefs. Negative beliefs about the political system increased emotional response to true and false news, which in turn increased perceptions of credibility, leading to higher accuracy attributions and willingness of sharing news (true or false). The most distinctive difference between the participants interactions with fake and true news was that participants willingness to share fake news was not entirely explained by emotional response and credibility perceptions. We conclude that people seem to rely on emotional cues, appraised with regard to previous beliefs, and on emotionally biased credibility indicators to guess whether news are true or worth sharing.

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Fake news,Epistemic emotions,Previous beliefs,Perceived credibility,Sharing

• Computer and Information Sciences - Natural Sciences
• Psychology - Social Sciences
• Other Humanities - Humanities