The Role of Self‐Efficacy, Critical Thinking, and Media Literacy in Human Deepfake Video Detection

As deepfake videos become common and harder to detect, understanding how people identify them is increasingly important. Previous studies have explored how information literacy self‐efficacy, critical thinking and media literacy relate to misinformation detection, but few have focused on deepfake videos, which are more visually deceptive and cognitively demanding to examine. Further, less is known about how one's confidence interacts with individual traits to influence the detection process. Thus, this study examines how these factors relate to people's confidence and accuracy in identifying deepfake videos. Participants took part in an online study where they evaluated a set of real and deepfake videos, and completed a series of questions. Results show that all three traits influence detection accuracy, although new media literacy showed a negative effect. Moreover, confidence served as a mediator between new media literacy and detection accuracy. These findings suggest that helping people build stronger media‐related skills and confidence may support better identification when examining manipulated video content. The study also highlights the need for an investigation into the mechanisms behind miscalibrated confidence.