The effects of emotions, individual attitudes towards vaccination, and social endorsements on perceived fake news credibility and sharing motivations

Highlights：

• This study examines how emotions, pre-existing attitudes, and social endorsements affect the spread of fake news.

• The emotion of fear significantly influences how anti-vaccine individuals process fake news.

• The emotion of anger significantly affects how neutral individuals process fake news.

• Emotions show no significant effect on pro-vaccine individuals regarding fake news processing.

• Emotions, pre-existing attitudes, and social endorsements jointly affect status-seeking motivation to share fake news.