The COVID-19 pandemic went hand in hand with what some have called a “(mis)infodemic” about the virus on social media. Drawing on partisan motivated reasoning and partisan selective sharing, this study examines the influence of political viewpoints, anxiety, and the interactions of the two on believing and willingness to share false, corrective, and accurate claims about COVID-19 on social media. A large-scale 2 (emotion: anxiety vs relaxation) × 2 (slant of news outlet: MSNBC vs Fox News) experimental design with 719 US participants shows that anxiety is a driving factor in belief in and willingness to share claims of any type. Especially for Republicans, a state of heightened anxiety leads them to believe and share more claims. Our findings expand research on partisan motivated reasoning and selective sharing in online settings, and enhance the understanding of how anxiety shapes individuals’ processing of risk-related claims in issue contexts with high uncertainty.

COVID-19 大流行与一些人所谓的社交媒体上关于该病毒的“（错误）信息流行病”密切相关。借助党派动机推理和党派选择性分享，本研究考察了政治观点、焦虑以及两者的相互作用对相信和愿意在社交媒体上分享关于 COVID-19 的错误、纠正和准确声明的影响。一项针对 719 名美国参与者的大规模 2（情绪：焦虑 vs 放松）× 2（新闻媒体倾向：MSNBC vs 福克斯新闻）实验设计表明，焦虑是相信和愿意分享任何类型主张的驱动因素。特别是对于共和党人来说，一种高度焦虑的状态使他们相信并分享更多的主张。我们的发现扩大了对在线环境中党派动机推理和选择性分享的研究，