Language, Truth

The primary objective of this experiment is to examine how linguistic framing influences individuals’ belief in the truth of a claim, when the claim itself is either objectively true or false. Design. The experiment will employ a within-subject factorial design, manipulating: • Truthfulness of the claim: True vs. False content. • Linguistic framing: Explicit, Implicit, and Hedged phrasing Participants will be presented with a series of short, Twitter-style news reports. After each report, participants will rate the perceived truth of the specific claim. I expect that hedging and implicit content may increase perceived credibility for false reports, while reducing credibility for true reports, compared to explicit content.