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Increasing misinformation spread poses a threat to older adults but there is little research on older adults within the fake news literature. Embedded in the Changes in Integration for Social Decisions in Aging (CISDA) model, this study examined the role of (a) analytical reasoning; (b) affect; (c) news consumption frequency, and their interplay with (d) news content on news veracity detection in aging. Conducted during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the present study asked participants to view and evaluate COVID or non-COVID (i.e., everyday) news articles, followed by measures of analytical reasoning, affect, and news consumption frequency. News veracity detection was comparable between young and older adults. Additionally, fake news detection for non-COVID news was predicted by individual differences in analytic reasoning for both age groups. However, chronological age effects in fake news detection emerged within the older adult sample and interacted with the CISDA-derived components of analytical reasoning, affect, and news consumption frequency by news content. Collectively, these findings suggest that age-related vulnerabilities to deceptive news are only apparent in very old age. Our findings advance understanding of psychological mechanisms in news veracity detection in aging.

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Increasing misinformation spread, including related to COVID-19, is concerning and poses a particular threat to older adults given their enhanced subjective risk perception, disease-related risk, and impaired decision making. To date, psychological factors contributing to news veracity detection in aging are not well understood. This study determined the role of (i) analytical reasoning; (ii) mood; and (iii) news consumption on real and fake news detection among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic; and examined (iv) the extent to which news content moderated these associations. Participants were randomly assigned to view either COVID-related (N = 119) or non-COVID (N = 123) news articles, followed by analytical reasoning, mood, and news consumption measures. Accuracy for non-COVID fake news was higher than accuracy for non-COVID real news; with this effect not present for COVID-related news. Further, higher analytical reasoning (but not mood or media consumption) was associated with greater non-COVID fake news accuracy, while accuracy for non-COVID real news, or COVID-related real and fake news, did not vary by analytical reasoning ability. Uniquely extending previous work into aging, the novel findings generated here are discussed in the context of psychological mechanisms underlying news veracity detection and related decision-making processes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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