Impacts of Perceived Misinformation Exposure During Elections and Peer-to-Peer Transmission of Misinformation

In this talk, Toby Prike will cover two studies examining the impacts of perceived misinformation exposure on trust, democratic attitudes, and polarization. Prike, lecturer in the School of Psychology at Adelaide University, will also present findings from an experiment examining the peer-to-peer transmission of misinformation.

We conducted an experience-sampling study during the 2025 Australian Federal Election and have another underway for the 2026 New Zealand General Election. Participants completed a baseline survey and a follow-up survey two weeks after the election, which assessed institutional trust, democratic attitudes, and polarization. They also completed four experience-sampling surveys per day for five days; two days pre-election, election day, and two days post-election. In the experience-sampling surveys, we assessed perceptions of misinformation exposure, source use, polarization, and election-related emotions. For the Australian Federal Election (N = 123), participants reported perceived misinformation exposure (M = 2.37 instances), and primarily sought information via social media, conversation, and public news. We found that greater perceived misinformation exposure was associated with decreased institutional trust, worse democratic attitudes, and greater polarization. Use of traditional information sources predicted higher institutional trust and lower polarization, while non-traditional source use had mixed relationships. These findings provide ecologically valid evidence connecting perceived misinformation exposure to polarization and negative attitudes towards institutions and democracy. The 2026 New Zealand General Election is scheduled for November 7th, with data collection currently ongoing.

Results from our Australian Election study found that conversation was one of the most commonly reported sources of misinformation exposure. However, most existing misinformation research has focused on sharing social media posts, headlines, and articles, with less focus on peer-to-peer transmission. Therefore, I will also present findings from an experiment examining how news articles are communicated between individuals, focusing on the transmission of misinformation and corrections. Participants (n = 120 per wave; total N = 600) viewed and wrote summaries of four news articles (conditions: control, misinformation-only, weak correction, strong correction). These summaries were then presented to four subsequent waves of participants, who in turn wrote their own summaries to be passed on. Summaries were coded for the presence of misinformation and correction details, and misinformation reliance. In the initial summaries (position one), both weak and strong corrections reduced misinformation reliance, although strong corrections were more effective. However, both misinformation and correction details were lost during transmission, leading to increased misinformation reliance in the correction conditions. At the end of the communication chain (position five), there was no longer a significant difference in misinformation reliance between the weak correction and misinformation-only conditions. These results show that corrections can “lose out” to misinformation during peer-to-peer transmission. The findings also highlight the importance of using detailed corrections to reduce the risk of misinformation re-emerging.

Toby Prike is a Lecturer in the School of Psychology at Adelaide University. He is interested in why we believe the things we do, and the impacts of those beliefs. He is primarily a cognitive psychologist, but also extensively incorporates social psychology and individual differences research within his work. Toby’s main research interests focus on the causes and impacts of misinformation and non-evidence-based beliefs (e.g., conspiracy theories, paranormal beliefs, science denial), with an emphasis on strategies to reduce their influence and negative impacts.