A World of Mistrust: Fake News, Mistrust Mind-Sets, and Product Evaluations

The current research examines how the influence of fake news on product evaluations is moderated by consumers’ political ideologies. Several experiments show that exposure to fake news undermines the evaluations that liberals (but not conservatives) form in response to offerings they subsequently encounter in contexts completely unrelated to the fake news. Mediational evidence is also provided, indicating that exposure to fake news makes liberal...