Gordon Pennycook, Adam J. Berinsky, Puneet Bhargava, Hause Lin, Rocky Cole, Beth Goldberg, Stephan Lewandowsky, David G. Rand
{"title":"Inoculation and accuracy prompting increase accuracy discernment in combination but not alone","authors":"Gordon Pennycook, Adam J. Berinsky, Puneet Bhargava, Hause Lin, Rocky Cole, Beth Goldberg, Stephan Lewandowsky, David G. Rand","doi":"10.1038/s41562-024-02023-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Misinformation is a major focus of intervention efforts. Psychological inoculation—an intervention intended to help people identify manipulation techniques—is being adopted at scale around the globe. Yet the efficacy of this approach for increasing belief accuracy remains unclear, as prior work uses synthetic materials that do not contain claims of truth. To address this issue, we conducted five studies with 7,286 online participants using a set of news headlines based on real-world true/false content in which we systematically varied the presence or absence of emotional manipulation. Although an emotional manipulation inoculation did help participants identify emotional manipulation, there was no improvement in participants’ ability to tell truth from falsehood. However, when the inoculation was paired with an intervention that draws people’s attention to accuracy, the combined intervention did successfully improve truth discernment (by increasing belief in true content). These results provide evidence for synergy between popular misinformation interventions.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":21.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nature Human Behaviour","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02023-2","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Misinformation is a major focus of intervention efforts. Psychological inoculation—an intervention intended to help people identify manipulation techniques—is being adopted at scale around the globe. Yet the efficacy of this approach for increasing belief accuracy remains unclear, as prior work uses synthetic materials that do not contain claims of truth. To address this issue, we conducted five studies with 7,286 online participants using a set of news headlines based on real-world true/false content in which we systematically varied the presence or absence of emotional manipulation. Although an emotional manipulation inoculation did help participants identify emotional manipulation, there was no improvement in participants’ ability to tell truth from falsehood. However, when the inoculation was paired with an intervention that draws people’s attention to accuracy, the combined intervention did successfully improve truth discernment (by increasing belief in true content). These results provide evidence for synergy between popular misinformation interventions.
期刊介绍:
Nature Human Behaviour is a journal that focuses on publishing research of outstanding significance into any aspect of human behavior.The research can cover various areas such as psychological, biological, and social bases of human behavior.It also includes the study of origins, development, and disorders related to human behavior.The primary aim of the journal is to increase the visibility of research in the field and enhance its societal reach and impact.