Emotional language reduces belief in false claims

Samantha C. Phillips, Sze Yuh Nina Wang, Kathleen M. Carley, David G. Rand and Gordon Pennycook

Judgment and Decision Making, 2025, vol. 20, -

Abstract: Emotional appeals are a common manipulation tactic, and it is broadly assumed that emotionality increases belief in misinformation. However, past work often confounds the use of emotional language per se with the type of factual claims that tend to be communicated with emotion. In two experimental studies, we test the effects of manipulating the level of emotional language in false headlines while holding the factual claim constant. We find that, in the absence of a fact-check, the high-emotion version of a given factual claim was believed significantly less than the low-emotion version; in the presence of a fact-check, belief was comparatively low regardless of emotionality. A third experiment found that decreased belief in high-emotionality claims is greater for false claims than true claims, such that emotionality increases truth discernment overall. Finally, we analyze the social media platform X’s Community Notes program, in which users evaluate claims (‘Community Notes’) made by others. We find that Community Notes with more emotional language are less likely to be rated helpful. Our results suggest that, rather than being an effective tool for manipulating people into believing falsehoods, emotional language induces justified skepticism.

Date: 2025
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