Scientific authority cues increase the spread of misinformation

Abstract

Despite extensive efforts to curb misinformation, it continues to spread on social media platforms. Research indicates that people rarely share content they know is false, rather, they do so unintentionally due to cognitive biases triggered by contextual cues. Combining a large-scale behavioral data analysis with an experimental study, we investigate how Scientific Authority Cues , which we define as mentions of entities that signal scientific expertise or findings, affect the sharing of fact-checked content on social media by granting it credibility. Analyzing 8.7 million tweets linking to fact-checked content shared on Twitter (now X) between 2010 and 2023, we find that tweets with such cues are shared more, especially when linking to low veracity content or posted by right-leaning users. In a preregistered experiment deployed to U.S. participants ( N = 1,187), headlines that attributed claims to scientific entities elicited a greater willingness to share, an effect statistically mediated by perceived accuracy and influenced by trust and familiarity. Together, these findings reveal the double edge of invoking scientific authority: In polarized online spaces, cues that signal scientific credibility can be co-opted to amplify misinformation.