The Role of Need for Cognition and Credibility Assessment in Exposure to Political Information on the Internet

The Internet allows individuals access to an unprecedented amount of news information in human history. However, as several scholars have noted, this abundance of information may encourage selective exposure to attitude-consistent information. Despite this reality, the basic model of selective exposure has seen comparatively little elaboration over the years. This study investigates the effects of two related concepts on selective exposure behaviors: need for cognition and credibility assessment. Using two experimental designs with a non-college adult sample, this study shows that selective exposure to attitude-consistent information is a common behavior. Moreover, although selective exposure behavior is related to credibility assessments, the data revealed that need for cognition generally failed to demonstrate an effect on selective exposure. Implications of the findings are discussed and future directions for research are proposed