Experimental Design
In the first decision task, 30 statements have been rated as either True or False by an independent fact-checking organization. Individuals report the probability with which they believe the statement is rated as True. Individuals are incentivized to report their beliefs using a quadratic scoring rule. After reporting their belief, they have the option to pick costs they are willing to pay to see a fact-check. One of these costs is randomly picked by the computer. If the cost randomly chosen is one for which they decided to pay to see a fact-check, then their beliefs will be automatically updated to the result of the fact-check. If the cost randomly chosen is one they decided not to pay to see a fact-check, the belief initially reported would be their final answer. One of the 30 questions is randomly picked for payment for this decision task.
In the second decision task, individuals decide how many boxes to collect out of 100, one of which contains a bomb. For each box an individual collects, they earn 1 cent. Behind one of the boxes hides a bomb that destroys everything that has been collected. The remaining 99 boxes are worth 1 cent each. Individuals do not know where the bomb is located. They only know that the bomb can be in any place with equal probability. If an individual collects the box where the bomb is located, the bomb will explode, earning zero. If the individual stops before collecting the bomb, they gain the amount accumulated that far.
Following the two decisions task, individuals answer a questionnaire which elicits their political preferences, cognitive reflection task, big five, dark triad, and socio-demographic question. At the end of the experiment, they have a choice to donate $0, $1, $2, $3, $4, or $5 towards a fact-checking organization.