Adolescents' vulnerability to disinformation: Its measurement and relationship to critical thinking and moral disengagement.

Authors

  • Paula Herrero Diz Universidad Loyola Andalucía.
  • Milagrosa Sánchez Martín Universidad Loyola Andalucía.
  • Pilar Aguilar Barriga Universidad Loyola Andalucía.
  • José Antonio Muñiz Velázquez Universidad Loyola Andalucía.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22550/REP81-2-2023-04

Keywords:

disinformation, young people, teenagers, scale, critical thinking, media literacy, moral disengagement

Abstract

Young adolescents are more vulnerable to disinformation owing to the time that they spend online and their content consumption habits. The consequences of this phenomenon can be serious, both for the individual and at a social and political level. To alleviate this situation, different agencies recommend healthy practices regarding consumption and exchange of information; from checklists to self-learning exercises for the development of critical thinking. This research proposes a tool for the identification of behaviours among adolescents when giving credibility to information or content and the motives that lead them to share it, contributing at times to the spread of misleading information. After an exhaustive process of design, piloting, and psychometric validation using an English-speaking sample (N = 417), a reliable instrument was obtained. We also measured its correlation with critical thinking and moral disengagement. The results lead us to conclude that this is a new tool with which to observe the information consumption behaviours of young people and thus measure their vulnerability to disinformation. Similarly, we have confirmed how greater critical thinking is positively related to more responsible consumption when giving credibility to content or news, and how moral disengagement is linked to the fact of sharing such items with greater ease.

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Author Biographies

Paula Herrero Diz, Universidad Loyola Andalucía.

holds a PhD in Communication from the Universidad de Sevilla and a Master’s degree in Research Methods in Economic and Business Sciences from the Universidad de Córdoba. She works as an Assitant Professor and researcher in the Department of Communication and Education at Universidad Loyola Andalucía, where she teaches courses in the field of journalism. Her main research interests are young people as creators of digital content and innovation in media. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8708-1004

Milagrosa Sánchez Martín, Universidad Loyola Andalucía.

is a teacher and researcher in the Department of Psychology and Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Education at Universidad Loyola Andalucía. She holds a PhD in Psychology with a European mention, specializing in the field of Methodology of Behavioural Sciences. She was awarded the Young Researchers Prize by AEMCCO and is a founding member of the spin-off company Metodik. She has led several competitive national research projects and participated in others at European, national, and regional levels, as well as in research contracts with companies such as Pearson Education, Coca Cola’s Institute of Happiness, and the Spanish Red Cross. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7387-9971

Pilar Aguilar Barriga, Universidad Loyola Andalucía.

is a teacher and researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Universidad Loyola Andalucía. She has participated in several research projects funded by competitive public calls from the Ministry of Science in the I+D Excellence program and has been Co-IP of a project granted by the Andalusian Agency for International Cooperation for Development. In addition, she has collaborated on European research projects and has carried out scientific stays in the United States, United Kingdom, and Portugal. She has published 11 JCR articles. Since 2015, she has also taught classes and held management positions in the Department of Psychology at Universidad Loyola Andalucía. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0032-6273

José Antonio Muñiz Velázquez, Universidad Loyola Andalucía.

is a Teacher, Researcher, and Director of the Department of Communication and Education at Universidad Loyola Andalucía. He is also responsible for the Positive Communication and Digital Culture research group at the same university. He holds a degree in Information Sciences and Psychology and a PhD in Communication. His research focuses on the relationship between different facets of communication, happiness, and human flourishing. He has numerous publications in top scientific journals and publishers on this topic. He has been a visiting lecturer at universities such as Loyola Chicago University, Università di Siena, Università di Bologna, and Emerson College (Boston), among others. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4518-3624

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How to Cite

Herrero Diz, P., Sánchez Martín, M., Aguilar Barriga, P., and Muñiz Velázquez, J. A. (2023). Adolescents’ vulnerability to disinformation: Its measurement and relationship to critical thinking and moral disengagement. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 81(285), 335. https://doi.org/10.22550/REP81-2-2023-04

Issue

Vol. 81 No. 285 (2023)

Section

Studies

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