Assessing the truthfulness of security and defence news in Central and Eastern Europe: The role of cognitive style and the promise of epistemic sophistication

Abstract

In this study, we sought to determine whether findings associating cognitive style with news evaluation can be generalized within a Central and Eastern European (CEE) context. We examined the relevance of actively open‐minded thinking, need for cognition, analyticity, and dogmatism in determining the truthfulness of security and defence news headlines. Drawing from a sample of 500 participants from Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, our results align closely with effect sizes documented in mainstream literature concerning belief in fake news (BFN). In contrast, none of the tested cognitive style measures predicted belief in real news (BRN), and the cognitive reflection test yielded no usable results. The study also explored the utility of a new measure: epistemic sophistication. Our findings were moderately promising for the multiplicism subscale in predicting both BFN and BRN.