Combating health misinformation on social media through fact-checking: The effect of threat appraisal, coping appraisal, and empathy

Social media users’ active fact-checking as a way to restrain health misinformation has received considerable attention. With the protection motivation theory (PMT), this study divided fact-checking into verification and correction and analyzed the influence of threat and coping appraisal on health misinformation verification and correction intentions. Furthermore, the moderating effect of empathy was analyzed based on the prosocial characteristics of fact-checking. A total of 341 participants completed an online survey. The results of regression analysis showed that higher perceived reward and coping efficiency were associated with higher verification intention. Empathy positively moderated the effect of perceived threat on verification. The perceived threat, reward, and coping efficiency increased users’ intention to correct health misinformation. Moreover, findings also demonstrated that users would combine threat and coping appraisal to decide their fact-checking intention. The study extends PMT theory by incorporating users’ ability to empathize with others’ risk situations and uncovers a cognitive risk game process for health misinformation verification and correction on social media.