TITLE:
The Relationship between Cognitive Profile, Locus of Control, Uncertainty Intolerance and “Fake News” in a Group of Students
AUTHORS:
Adrian Prisăcaru
KEYWORDS:
“Fake News”, Dysfunctional Negative Emotions, Cognitive Profile, Locus of Control, Intolerance of Uncertainty, Cognitive Bias, Manipulation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.13 No.4,
April
30,
2025
ABSTRACT: The present study highlights and provides conclusive evidence on the role of cognitive profile, locus of control and intolerance to uncertainty on the emotional states induced by media information, especially the negative emotional states induced by “fake news”. It has been shown that each psychological characteristic studied has a particular role in the reception, processing, interpretation and elaboration of the response to informational stimuli, but the cognitive profile is the central one. As an example, the onset of negative, dysfunctional emotional states induced by “fake news”, with reference to the dependent variable fear/anxiety, can be explained in 80.7% of variance by the irrational cognitive profile, externalism and intolerance to uncertainty, discussed in the literature as psychological vulnerabilities. The study also highlights some differences in the dysfunctional negative emotional states induced by the “fake news” variable according to the age of the individuals, with higher values in the over 35 age group compared to the under 35 age group. For example, the biggest difference is for the anxiety/anxiety variable, where the difference between means is −30.717, followed by the anger variable, where the difference between means is −28.586. The scores reported describe older people as showing some resistance to new situations, to change, remaining with old habits of media consumption oriented towards TV shows and less towards online platforms and perhaps a poorer adaptation to the presence of manipulative fake news.