Inoculation and accuracy prompting increase accuracy discernment in combination but not alone

Gordon Pennycook (), Adam J. Berinsky, Puneet Bhargava, Hause Lin, Rocky Cole, Beth Goldberg, Stephan Lewandowsky and David G. Rand
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Gordon Pennycook: Cornell University
Adam J. Berinsky: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Puneet Bhargava: University of Pennsylvania
Hause Lin: University of Regina
Rocky Cole: Jigsaw (Google)
Beth Goldberg: Jigsaw (Google)
Stephan Lewandowsky: University of Bristol
David G. Rand: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature Human Behaviour, 2024, vol. 8, issue 12, 2330-2341

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-02023-2

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