‘Fake news’: Incorrect, but hard to correct. The role of cognitive ability on the impact of false information on social impressions

The present experiment examined how people adjust their judgment after they learn that crucial information on which their initial evaluation was based is incorrect. In line with our expectations, the results showed that people generally do adjust their attitudes, but the degree to which they correct their assessment depends on their cognitive ability.

A study of how corrections to misinformation are understood by people and demonstrate that even once fake news has been debunked it may still persist in place of the truth for some groups of people.