Heuristics used in credibility judgment of health information on Facebook

Abstract

Facebook users worldwide had been facing challenges of information credibility. This study aimed to address this issue among Thai Facebook users by focusing on health information in particular, through a lens of heuristic approach. Data were collected from 50 informants by in-depth interviews and 480 responses from online surveys. All participants were at least 18 years old with a minimum of one year experience in using Facebook. The results revealed three different processes and five heuristics, namely, reputation heuristic, authority heuristic, expectancy violation heuristic, persuasive intense heuristic, and bandwagon heuristics that participants adopted when making a credibility judgment of health information on Facebook. Persuasive intense heuristic was found to be most commonly used, followed by authority heuristic, reputation heuristic, expectancy violation heuristic, and bandwagon heuristic, respectively. Additionally, the empirical findings yielded the difference in using each group of heuristics among Thai Facebook who were different in term of health motivation, perceived seriousness of health issue, health literacy, health e-mavens, and holistic worldview.