Can you believe it? An investigation into the impact of retraction source credibility on the continued influence effect

Conspire to one's own detriment: Strengthening HPV Program Support Through Debunking Epistemically Suspect Beliefs

The study experimentally tested an intervention that debunks epistemically suspect beliefs about vaccines. After answering questions about pre-existing epistemically suspect beliefs (irrational health beliefs and conspiracy mentality), 565 participants were randomly assigned into one of three conditions and exposed either to neutral information about domestic animals, salient epistemically suspect content about vaccination or an intervention that debunks epistemically suspect beliefs about vaccination. Afterwards, the participants answered questions about vaccination-related conspiracy narratives (manipulation check), vaccination attitudes, intentions to vaccinate against HPV, support for an HPV vaccination programme and intentions to seek health guidance. Although the intervention demonstrated the potential to inhibit the endorsement of conspiracy narratives, we found no differences in the other outcome variables. Nevertheless, across the conditions, pre-existing epistemically suspect beliefs were associated with less favourable attitudes towards vaccination, lower intentions to vaccinate against HPV, less support for the vaccination programme and lower intentions to seek health guidance. The results indicate that debunking may be futile in curbing long-term negative impacts associated with epistemically suspect beliefs, and they contribute to the debate about assessing the effectiveness of interventions related to highly controversial topics such as vaccination. The study enhances understanding of persistent adverse impacts that epistemically suspect beliefs may have on public health outcomes.

Does source reliability moderate the survival processing effect? The role of linguistic markers as reliability cues

Adaptive memory retains information that would increase survival chances and reproductive success, resulting in the survival processing effect. Less is known about whether the reliability of the information interacts with the survival processing effect. From an adaptive point, information from reliable sources should lead to better encoding of information, particularly in a survival context. In Turkish, specific linguistic components called evidentiality markers encode whether the information presented is firsthand (direct) or not (indirect), providing insight into source reliability. In two experiments, we examined the effect of evidentiality markers on recall across survival and nonsurvival (moving) contexts, predicting that the survival processing effect would be stronger for information marked with evidentiality markers indicating direct information. Results of both experiments yielded a robust survival processing effect, as the sentences processed for their relevance to survival were better remembered than those processed for their relevance to nonsurvival events. Yet the marker type did not affect retention, regardless of being tested as a between- or within-subject factor. Specifically, the survival processing effect persisted even with evidentiality markers indicating indirect information, which suggests that the processing of survival-related information may be privileged even if potentially unreliable. We discuss these results in the context of recent studies of the interaction of language with memory.

User correction

This paper reviews the existing literature on user correction to consider its value for combating misinformation on social media. We discuss the effectiveness of user correction in reducing misperceptions, and synthesize best practices, highlighting the dual audiences for public correction on social media. We outline how often user correction occurs across contexts, countries, and social media platforms. We pay special attention to the methodological constraints in existing research, emphasizing the need for using diverse and interdisciplinary methods, including longitudinal surveys and experiments, computational methods, realistic simulated environments, and qualitative methods. We call for a more comprehensive understanding of user correction in terms of its long-term and downstream effects on social media platforms.

On the role of memory in misinformation corrections: Repeated exposure, correction durability, and source credibility

Misinformation can negatively affect cognition, beliefs, and behavior, and thus contribute to societal disruption. Correcting misinformation can counteract these effects by updating memory and beliefs. In this selective review, we highlight recent perspectives on and evidence for the role of memory in the efficacy of correction methods. Two theoretical accounts propose that repeating misinformation can impair or improve correction efficacy to the extent that familiarity or integrative encoding prevails. We summarize evidence that recollection of corrections can counteract potential interference from misinformation repetitions on memory and belief updating. The efficacy of such updating also declines over time, especially when misinformation sources are not remembered. We call for more research on the role of memory in everyday misinformation corrections to better understand interactions among these processes.

Cancer: A model topic for misinformation researchers

Although cancer might seem like a niche subject, we argue that it is a model topic for misinformation researchers, and an ideal area of application given its importance for society. We first discuss the prevalence of cancer misinformation online and how it has the potential to cause harm. We next examine the financial incentives for those who profit from disinformation dissemination, how people with cancer are a uniquely vulnerable population, and why trust in science and medical professionals is particularly relevant to this topic. We finally discuss how belief in cancer misinformation has clear objective consequences and can be measured with treatment adherence and health outcomes such as mortality. In sum, cancer misinformation could assist the characterization of misinformation beliefs and be used to develop tools to combat misinformation in general.

The Feasibility of Using the National PulsePoint Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Responder Network to Facilitate Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND

The use of naloxone, an opioid antagonist, is a critical component of the US response to fatal opioid-involved overdoses. The importance and utility of naloxone in preventing fatal overdoses have been widely declaimed by medical associations and government officials and are supported by strong research evidence. Still, there are gaps in the current US national strategy because many opioid-involved overdose fatalities have no evidence of naloxone administration. Improving the likelihood that naloxone will be used to prevent fatal overdoses is predicated on facilitating an environment wherein naloxone is available near each overdose and can be accessed by someone who is willing and able to use it. How to accomplish this on a national scale has been unclear. However, there exists a national network of >1 million cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) layperson responders and 4800 emergency responder agencies linked through a mobile phone app called PulsePoint Respond. PulsePoint responders certify that they are trained to administer CPR and are willing to respond to possible cardiac events in public. When such an event occurs near their mobile phone's location, they receive an alert to respond. These motivated citizens are ideally positioned to carry naloxone and reverse overdoses that occur in public.

OBJECTIVE

This randomized controlled trial will examine the feasibility of recruiting first responder agencies and layperson CPR responders who already use PulsePoint to obtain overdose education and carry naloxone.

METHODS

This will be a 3-arm parallel-group randomized controlled trial. We will randomly select 180 first responder agencies from the population of agencies contracting with the PulsePoint Foundation. The 3 study arms will include a standard recruitment arm, a misperception-correction recruitment arm, and a control arm (1:1:1 allocation, with random allocation stratified by zip code designation [rural or nonrural]). We will study agency recruitment and, among the agencies we successfully recruit, responder certification of receiving overdose and naloxone education, carrying naloxone, or both. Hypothesis 1 contrasts agency recruitment success between arms 1 and 2, and hypothesis 2 contrasts the ratios of layperson certification across all 3 arms. The primary analyses will be a logistic regression comparing the recruitment rates among the arms, adjusting for rural or nonrural zip code designation.

RESULTS

This study was reviewed by the Indiana University Institutional Review Board (20218 and 20219). This project was funded beginning September 14, 2023, by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

CONCLUSIONS

The hypotheses in this study will test whether a specific type of messaging is particularly effective in recruiting agencies and layperson responders. Although we hypothesize that arm 2 will outperform the other arms, our intention is to use the best-performing approach in the next phase of this study if any of our approaches demonstrates feasibility.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

OSF Registries osf.io/egn3z; https://osf.io/egn3z.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

PRR1-10.2196/57280.

Source-credibility information and social norms improve truth discernment and reduce engagement with misinformation online

Misinformation on social media is a pervasive challenge. In this study (N = 415) a social-media simulation was used to test two potential interventions for countering misinformation: a credibility badge and a social norm. The credibility badge was implemented by associating accounts, including participants', with a credibility score. Participants' credibility score was dynamically updated depending on their engagement with true and false posts. To implement the social-norm intervention, participants were provided with both a descriptive norm (i.e., most people do not share misinformation) and an injunctive norm (i.e., sharing misinformation is the wrong thing to do). Both interventions were effective. The social-norm intervention led to reduced belief in false claims and improved discrimination between true and false claims. It also had some positive impact on social-media engagement, although some effects were not robust to alternative analysis specifications. The presence of credibility badges led to greater belief in true claims, lower belief in false claims, and improved discrimination. The credibility-badge intervention also had robust positive impacts on social-media engagement, leading to increased flagging and decreased liking and sharing of false posts. Cumulatively, the results suggest that both interventions have potential to combat misinformation and improve the social-media information landscape.

The (Mis)Information Game: A social media simulator

Given the potential negative impact reliance on misinformation can have, substantial effort has gone into understanding the factors that influence misinformation belief and propagation. However, despite the rise of social media often being cited as a fundamental driver of misinformation exposure and false beliefs, how people process misinformation on social media platforms has been under-investigated. This is partially due to a lack of adaptable and ecologically valid social media testing paradigms, resulting in an over-reliance on survey software and questionnaire-based measures. To provide researchers with a flexible tool to investigate the processing and sharing of misinformation on social media, this paper presents The Misinformation Game-an easily adaptable, open-source online testing platform that simulates key characteristics of social media. Researchers can customize posts (e.g., headlines, images), source information (e.g., handles, avatars, credibility), and engagement information (e.g., a post's number of likes and dislikes). The platform allows a range of response options for participants (like, share, dislike, flag) and supports comments. The simulator can also present posts on individual pages or in a scrollable feed, and can provide customized dynamic feedback to participants via changes to their follower count and credibility score, based on how they interact with each post. Notably, no specific programming skills are required to create studies using the simulator. Here, we outline the key features of the simulator and provide a non-technical guide for use by researchers. We also present results from two validation studies. All the source code and instructions are freely available online at https://misinfogame.com .

The nature of misinformation in education

In this opinion piece, we review and characterize the nature of misinformation in education and discuss the implications for corrective efforts. In education, misinformation manifests at three different levels: the individual, the community, and the system. At the individual level, misinformation manifests as naive beliefs or misconceptions students hold before they receive instruction or because of instruction. At the community level, misinformation manifests as shared flawed views or misconceptions about certain topics often around risk factors and treatments of learning disabilities. At the system level, misinformation manifests as state or district educational policies and practices that have no scientific evidence. Thus, corrective efforts in education must be implemented at all three levels and follow best practices.

How do forewarnings and post-warnings affect misinformation reliance? The impact of warnings on the continued influence effect and belief regression

People often continue to rely on certain information in their reasoning, even if this information has been retracted; this is called the continued influence effect (CIE) of misinformation. One technique for reducing this effect involves explicitly warning people that there is a possibility that they might have been misled. The present study aimed to investigate these warnings' effectiveness, depending on when they were given (either before or after misinformation). In two experiments (N = 337), we found that while a forewarning did reduce reliance on misinformation, retrospectively warned participants (when the warning was placed either between the misinformation and the retraction or just before testing) relied on the misinformation to a similar degree as unwarned participants. However, the protective effect of the forewarning was not durable, as shown by the fact that reliance on the misinformation increased for over 7 days following the first testing, despite continued memory of the retraction.

Effective correction of misinformation

This paper reviews correction effectiveness, highlighting which factors matter, which do not, and where further research is needed. To boost effectiveness, we recommend using detailed corrections and providing an alternative explanation wherever possible. We also recommend providing a reminder of the initial misinformation and repeating the correction. Presenting corrections pre-emptively (i.e., prebunking) or after misinformation exposure is unlikely to greatly impact correction effectiveness. There is also limited risk of repeating misinformation within a correction or that a correction will inadvertently spread misinformation to new audiences. Further research is needed into which correction formats are most effective, whether boosting correction memorability can enhance effectiveness, the effectiveness of discrediting a misinformation source, and whether distrusted correction sources can contribute to corrections backfiring.

How to debunk misinformation? An experimental online study investigating text structures and headline formats

OBJECTIVES

Misinformation is a crucial problem, particularly online, and the success of debunking messages has so far been limited. In this study, we experimentally test how debunking text structure (truth sandwich vs. bottom-heavy) and headline format (statement vs. questions) affect the belief in misinformation across topics of the safety of COVID vaccines and GMO foods.

DESIGN

Experimental online study.

METHODS

A representative German sample of 4906 participants were randomly assigned to reading one of eight debunking messages in the experimentally varied formats and subsequently rated the acceptance of this message and the agreement to misinformation statements about the mentioned topics and an unrefuted control myth.

RESULTS

While the debunking messages specifically decreased the belief in the targeted myth, these beliefs and the acceptance of the debunking message were unaffected by the text structures and headline formats. Yet, they were less successful when addressing individuals with strong pre-existing, incongruent attitudes and distrust in science.

CONCLUSIONS

The risk of backfire effects in debunking misinformation is low. Text structure and headline format are of relatively little importance for the effectiveness of debunking messages. Instead, writers may need to pay attention to the text being comprehensive, trustworthy and persuasive to maximize effectiveness.

Examining the replicability of backfire effects after standalone corrections

Corrections are a frequently used and effective tool for countering misinformation. However, concerns have been raised that corrections may introduce false claims to new audiences when the misinformation is novel. This is because boosting the familiarity of a claim can increase belief in that claim, and thus exposing new audiences to novel misinformation-even as part of a correction-may inadvertently increase misinformation belief. Such an outcome could be conceptualized as a familiarity backfire effect, whereby a familiarity boost increases false-claim endorsement above a control-condition or pre-correction baseline. Here, we examined whether standalone corrections-that is, corrections presented without initial misinformation exposure-can backfire and increase participants' reliance on the misinformation in their subsequent inferential reasoning, relative to a no-misinformation, no-correction control condition. Across three experiments (total N = 1156) we found that standalone corrections did not backfire immediately (Experiment 1) or after a one-week delay (Experiment 2). However, there was some mixed evidence suggesting corrections may backfire when there is skepticism regarding the correction (Experiment 3). Specifically, in Experiment 3, we found the standalone correction to backfire in open-ended responses, but only when there was skepticism towards the correction. However, this did not replicate with the rating scales measure. Future research should further examine whether skepticism towards the correction is the first replicable mechanism for backfire effects to occur.

Strategies to Address COVID-19 Vaccine and Pregnancy Myths

ABSTRACT

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) poses risks to pregnant women and their infants. The spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccination is a barrier to optimizing vaccination rates among women of childbearing age. We conducted an environmental scan to identify misinformation about COVID-19 vaccination, pregnancy, and fertility, and a review to identify evidence to refute misinformation and strategies to correct and prevent the spread of misinformation. Seven identified themes of misinformation are: the vaccine causes female infertility; can cause miscarriage; and can decrease male fertility; mRNA vaccines attack the placenta; pregnant and breastfeeding persons should not get the vaccine; the vaccine can change menstrual cycles; and vaccinated people can spread infertility symptoms to unvaccinated people. Strategies that can be implemented by social media platforms to help prevent misinformation spread and correct existing health misinformation include improving information regulation by modifying community standards, implementing surveillance algorithms, and applying warning labels to potentially misleading posts. Health services organizations and clinicians can implement health misinformation policies, directly recommend vaccinations, provide credible explanations and resources to debunk misinformation, educate patients and populations on spotting misinformation, and apply effective communication strategies. More research is needed to assess longer-term effects of vaccination among women of childbearing age to strengthen the defense against misinformation and to evaluate strategies that aim to prevent and correct misinformation spread about COVID-19 vaccinations.

Mechanisms in continued influence: The impact of misinformation corrections on source perceptions

Research on the continued influence effect (CIE) of misinformation has demonstrated that misinformation continues to influence people's beliefs and judgments even after it has been corrected. Although most theorizing about the CIE attempts to explain why corrections do not eliminate belief in and influences of the misinformation, the present research takes a different approach and focuses instead on why corrections do reduce belief in misinformation (even if not entirely). We examined how a correction can change perceptions of the original source of the misinformation and how these changes in perceptions can mediate continued influence effects. We also examined causal evidence linking manipulations of misinformation source perceptions to continued belief and misinformation-relevant inferential reasoning. Study 1 demonstrated that an external correction (i.e., a new source labeling misinformation as false) influences perceptions of the misinformation source, and these perceptions of the misinformation source then correlated with belief in the misinformation. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1 and used source derogation to manipulate misinformation source perceptions and further lessen continued belief. Study 3 was a preregistered replication of previous results using new methodology. These studies suggest that perceptions of the misinformation source is one mechanism that can cause changes in belief in misinformation, and changes in the perception of a source can be achieved simply by correcting the source or through other means. This approach can be used to find other mechanisms responsible for reducing belief in misinformation.

An anti-infodemic virtual center for the Americas

The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) Anti-Infodemic Virtual Center for the Americas (AIVCA) is a project led by the Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health, PAHO and the Center for Health Informatics, PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center on Information Systems for Health, at the University of Illinois, with the participation of PAHO staff and consultants across the region. Its goal is to develop a set of tools-pairing AI with human judgment-to help ministries of health and related health institutions respond to infodemics. Public health officials will learn about emerging threats detected by the center and get recommendations on how to respond. The virtual center is structured with three parallel teams: detection, evidence, and response. The detection team will employ a mixture of advanced search queries, machine learning, and other AI techniques to sift through more than 800 million new public social media posts per day to identify emerging infodemic threats in both English and Spanish. The evidence team will use the EasySearch federated search engine backed by AI, PAHO's knowledge management team, and the Librarian Reserve Corps to identify the most relevant authoritative sources. The response team will use a design approach to communicate recommended response strategies based on behavioural science, storytelling, and information design approaches.

Effective mitigation of the belief perseverance bias after the retraction of misinformation: Awareness training and counter-speech

The spread and influence of misinformation have become a matter of concern in society as misinformation can negatively impact individuals' beliefs, opinions and, consequently, decisions. Research has shown that individuals persevere in their biased beliefs and opinions even after the retraction of misinformation. This phenomenon is known as the belief perseverance bias. However, research on mitigating the belief perseverance bias after the retraction of misinformation has been limited. Only a few debiasing techniques with limited practical applicability have been proposed, and research on comparing various techniques in terms of their effectiveness has been scarce. This paper contributes to research on mitigating the belief perseverance bias after the retraction of misinformation by proposing counter-speech and awareness-training techniques and comparing them in terms of effectiveness to the existing counter-explanation technique in an experiment with N = 251 participants. To determine changes in opinions, the extent of the belief perseverance bias and the effectiveness of the debiasing techniques in mitigating the belief perseverance bias, we measure participants' opinions four times in the experiment by using Likert items and phi-coefficient measures. The effectiveness of the debiasing techniques is assessed by measuring the difference between the baseline opinions before exposure to misinformation and the opinions after exposure to a debiasing technique. Further, we discuss the efforts of the providers and recipients of debiasing and the practical applicability of the debiasing techniques. The CS technique, with a very large effect size, is the most effective among the three techniques. The CE and AT techniques, with medium effect sizes, are close to being equivalent in terms of their effectiveness. The CS and AT techniques are associated with less cognitive and time effort of the recipients of debiasing than the CE technique, while the AT and CE techniques require less effort from the providers of debiasing than the CS technique.

Understanding the role of fear of missing out and deficient self-regulation in sharing of deepfakes on social media: Evidence from eight countries

Deepfakes are a troubling form of disinformation that has been drawing increasing attention. Yet, there remains a lack of psychological explanations for deepfake sharing behavior and an absence of research knowledge in non-Western contexts where public knowledge of deepfakes is limited. We conduct a cross-national survey study in eight countries to examine the role of fear of missing out (FOMO), deficient self-regulation (DSR), and cognitive ability in deepfake sharing behavior. Results are drawn from a comparative survey in seven South Asian contexts (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) and compare these findings to the United States, where discussions about deepfakes have been most relevant. Overall, the results suggest that those who perceive the deepfakes to be accurate are more likely to share them on social media. Furthermore, in all countries, sharing is also driven by the social-psychological trait - FOMO. DSR of social media use was also found to be a critical factor in explaining deepfake sharing. It is also observed that individuals with low cognitive ability are more likely to share deepfakes. However, we also find that the effects of DSR on social media and FOMO are not contingent upon users' cognitive ability. The results of this study contribute to strategies to limit deepfakes propagation on social media.

Does explaining the origins of misinformation improve the effectiveness of a given correction?

Misinformation often has a continuing influence on event-related reasoning even when it is clearly and credibly corrected; this is referred to as the continued influence effect. The present work investigated whether a correction's effectiveness can be improved by explaining the origins of the misinformation. In two experiments, we examined whether a correction that explained misinformation as originating either from intentional deception or an unintentional error was more effective than a correction that only identified the misinformation as false. Experiment 2 found no evidence that corrections explaining the reason the misinformation was presented, were more effective than a correction not accompanied by an explanation, and no evidence of a difference in effectiveness between a correction that explained the misinformation as intentional deception and one that explained it as unintentional error. We replicated this in Experiment 2 and found substantial attenuation of the continued influence effect in a novel scenario with the same underlying structure. Overall, the results suggest that informing people of the cause leading to presentation of misinformation, whether deliberate or accidental, may not be an effective correction strategy over and above stating that the misinformation is false.

Best Practices for Ethical Conduct of Misinformation Research

Abstract. Misinformation can have noxious impacts on cognition, fostering the formation of false beliefs, retroactively distorting memory for events, and influencing reasoning and decision-making even after it has been credibly corrected. Researchers investigating the impacts of real-world misinformation are therefore faced with an ethical issue: they must consider the immediate and long-term consequences of exposing participants to false claims. In this paper, we first present an overview of the ethical risks associated with real-world misinformation. We then report results from a scoping review of ethical practices in misinformation research. We investigated (1) the extent to which researchers report the details of their ethical practices, including issues of informed consent and debriefing, and (2) the specific steps that researchers report taking to protect participants from the consequences of misinformation exposure. We found that fewer than 30% of misinformation papers report any debriefing, and almost no authors assessed the effectiveness of their debriefing procedure. Building on the findings from this review, we evaluate the balance of risk versus reward currently operating in this field and propose a set of guidelines for best practices. Our ultimate goal is to allow researchers the freedom to investigate questions of considerable scientific and societal impact while meeting their ethical obligations to participants.

The independent effects of source expertise and trustworthiness on retraction believability: The moderating role of vested interest

Past research suggests that the trustworthiness of a source issuing a retraction of misinformation impacts retraction effectiveness, whereas source expertise does not. However, this prior research largely used expert sources who had a vested interest in issuing the retraction, which might have reduced the impact of those expert sources. We predicted that source expertise can impact a retraction's believability independent of trustworthiness, but that this is most likely when the source does not have a vested interest in issuing a retraction. Study 1 demonstrated that retractions from an expert source are believed more and lead to less continued belief in misinformation than retractions from an inexpert source while controlling for perceptions of trustworthiness. Additionally, Study 1 demonstrated that this only occurs when the source had no vested interest in issuing the retraction. Study 2 found similar effects using a design containing manipulations of both expertise and trustworthiness. These results suggest that source expertise can impact retraction effectiveness and that vested interest is a variable that is critical to consider when determining when this will occur.

Processes of persuasion and social influence in conspiracy beliefs

If conspiracy beliefs were an individual process, no conspiracy theory would be alike. Instead, these beliefs are promoted by individuals or social groups through the media or informal channels of communication, leading to identical beliefs being espoused by different people and social groups. This paper reviews the role of the social influence as a basis for conspiracy beliefs and describes the role of legacy media, discussions with others, and social media, as well as the underlying informational and normative mechanisms. The role of trust is also considered, including how trust in science can increase vulnerability to conspiracy theories by opening audiences up to the influence of pseudo-scientists. Mitigating the impact of these influences will require research attention to processes that go beyond correction, elucidating the interpersonal consequences of corrections within contemporary information wars.

EXPRESS: Combining Refutations and Social Norms Increases Belief Change

Misinformed beliefs are difficult to change. Refutations that target false claims typically reduce false beliefs, but tend to be only partially effective. In this study, a social norming approach was explored to test whether provision of peer norms could provide an alternative or complementary approach to refutation. Three experiments investigated whether a descriptive norm-by itself or in combination with a refutation-could reduce the endorsement of worldview-congruent claims. Experiment 1 found that using a single point estimate to communicate a norm affected belief but had less impact than a refutation. Experiment 2 used a verbally-presented distribution of four values to communicate a norm, which was largely ineffective. Experiment 3 used a graphically-presented social norm with 25 values, which was found to be as effective at reducing claim belief as a refutation, with the combination of both interventions being most impactful. These results provide a proof of concept that normative information can aid in the debunking of false or equivocal claims, and suggests that theories of misinformation processing should take social factors into account.

Countering vaccine hesitancy through medical expert endorsement

Scientists and medical experts are among the professionals trusted the most. Are they also the most suitable figures to convince the general public to get vaccinated? In a pre-registered experiment, we tested whether expert endorsement increases the effectiveness of debunking messages about COVID-19 vaccines. We monitored a sample of 2,277 people in Italy through a longitudinal study along the salient phases of the vaccination campaign. Participants received a series of messages endorsed by either medical researchers (experimental group) or by generic others (control). In order to minimise demand effects, we collected participants’ responses always at ten days from the last debunking message. Whereas we did not find an increase in vaccination behaviour, we found that participants in the experimental group displayed higher intention to vaccinate, as well as more positive beliefs about the protectiveness of vaccines. The more debunking messages the participants received, the greater the increase in vaccination intention in the experimental group compared to control. This suggests that multiple exposure is critical for the effectiveness of expert-endorsed debunking messages. In addition, these effects are significant regardless of participants’ trust toward science. Our results suggest that scientist and medical experts are not simply a generally trustworthy category but also a well suited messenger in contrasting disinformation during vaccination campaigns.

Vaccination against misinformation: The inoculation technique reduces the continued influence effect

The continued influence effect of misinformation (CIE) is a phenomenon in which certain information, although retracted and corrected, still has an impact on event reporting, reasoning, inference, and decisions. The main goal of this paper is to investigate to what extent this effect can be reduced using the procedure of inoculation and how it can be moderated by the reliability of corrections' sources. The results show that the reliability of corrections' sources did not affect their processing when participants were not inoculated. However, inoculated participants relied on misinformation less when the correction came from a highly credible source. For this source condition, as a result of inoculation, a significant increase in belief in retraction, as well as a decrease in belief in misinformation was also found. Contrary to previous reports, belief in misinformation rather than belief in retraction predicted reliance on misinformation. These findings are of both great practical importance as certain boundary conditions for inoculation efficiency have been discovered to reduce the impact of the continued influence of misinformation, and theoretical, as they provide insight into the mechanisms behind CIE. The results were interpreted in terms of existing CIE theories as well as within the remembering framework, which describes the conversion from memory traces to behavioral manifestations of memory.

How Attitudes Impact the Continued Influence Effect of Misinformation: The Mediating Role of Discomfort

Past research suggests that people continue believing retracted misinformation more when it is consistent versus inconsistent with their attitudes. However, the psychological mechanism responsible for this phenomenon remains unclear. We predicted that retractions of attitude-consistent misinformation produce greater feelings of discomfort than retractions of attitude-inconsistent misinformation and that this discomfort predicts continued belief in and use of the misinformation. We report combined analyses across 10 studies testing these predictions. Seven studies (total N = 1,323) used a mediational framework and found that the more consistent misinformation was with participants' attitudes, the more discomfort was elicited by a retraction of the misinformation. Greater discomfort then predicted greater continued belief in the misinformation, which, in turn, predicted greater use of the misinformation when participants made relevant inferences. Three additional studies (total N = 574) utilized misattribution paradigms to demonstrate that the relation between discomfort and belief in misinformation is causal in nature.

Bibliometric and Altmetric Analysis of Retracted Articles on COVID-19

BACKGROUND

With greater use of social media platforms for promotions of research articles, retracted articles tend to receive approximately the same attention. We systematically analyzed retracted articles from retractionwatch.com to look at the Altmetric Attention Scores (AAS) garnered over a period of time in order to highlight the role of social media and other platforms in advertising retracted articles and its effect on the spread of misinformation.

METHODS

Retractionwatch.com was searched for coronavirus disease 2019 related retracted papers on November 6th, 2021. Articles were excluded based on lack of digital object identifier (DOI), if they were preprint articles, absent AAS, and incomplete AAS of pre retraction, post retraction, or both scores.

RESULTS

A total of 196 articles were found on the Retraction Watch website of which 189 were retracted papers and 7 were expression of concern (EOC). We then identified 175 articles after excluding those that did not have a DOI and 30 preprint articles were also excluded giving 145 articles. Further exclusion of articles with absent AAS and incomplete AAS resulted in a total of 22 articles.

CONCLUSION

Retracted articles receive significant online attention. Twitter and Mendeley were the most popular medium for publicizing retracted articles, therefore more focus should be given by journals and their Twitter accounts to discredit all their retracted articles. Preprints should be reconsidered as a whole by journals due to the huge risk they carry in disseminating false information.

A comparison of prebunking and debunking interventions for implied versus explicit misinformation

Psychological research has offered valuable insights into how to combat misinformation. The studies conducted to date, however, have three limitations. First, pre-emptive ("prebunking") and retroactive ("debunking") interventions have mostly been examined in parallel, and thus it is unclear which of these two predominant approaches is more effective. Second, there has been a focus on misinformation that is explicitly false, but implied misinformation that uses literally true information to mislead is common in the real world. Finally, studies have relied mainly on questionnaire measures of reasoning, neglecting behavioural impacts of misinformation and interventions. To offer incremental progress towards addressing these three issues, we conducted an experiment (N = 735) involving misinformation on fair trade. We contrasted the effectiveness of prebunking versus debunking and the impacts of implied versus explicit misinformation, and incorporated novel measures assessing consumer behaviours (i.e., willingness-to-pay; information seeking; online misinformation promotion) in addition to standard questionnaire measures. In general, both prebunking and debunking reduced misinformation reliance. We also found that individuals tended to rely more on explicit than implied misinformation both with and without interventions.

Exploring factors that mitigate the continued influence of misinformation

Background

The term “continued influence effect” (CIE) refers to the phenomenon that discredited and obsolete information continues to affect behavior and beliefs. The practical relevance of this work is particularly apparent as we confront fake news everyday. Thus, an important question becomes, how can we mitigate the continued influence of misinformation? Decades of research have identified several factors that contribute to the CIE reduction, but few have reported successful elimination. Across three studies, we evaluated the relative contribution of three factors (i.e., targeting the misinformation, providing an alternative explanation, and relative importance of the misinformation content) to the reduction of the CIE.

Results

Across three studies and two different CIE measures, we found that alternative provision consistently resulted in CIE reduction. Furthermore, under certain conditions, the combination of alternative inclusion and direct targeting of misinformation in the correction statement resulted in successful elimination of the CIE, such that individuals who encountered that type of correction behaved similarly to baseline participants who never encountered the (mis)information. In contrast, under one CIE measure, participants who received correction statements that failed to include those elements referenced the (mis)information as frequently as baseline participants who never encountered a correction. Finally, we delineated several component processes involved in misinformation outdating and found that the extent of outdating success varied as a function of the causality of misinformation.

Conclusions

The damaging effects of fake news are undeniable, and the negative consequences are exacerbated in the digital age. Our results contribute to our understanding of how fake news persists and how we may begin to mitigate their effects.

The role of discomfort in the continued influence effect of misinformation

Research examining the continued influence effect (CIE) of misinformation has reliably found that belief in misinformation persists even after the misinformation has been retracted. However, much remains to be learned about the psychological mechanisms responsible for this phenomenon. Most theorizing in this domain has focused on cognitive mechanisms. Yet some proposed cognitive explanations provide reason to believe that motivational mechanisms might also play a role. The present research tested the prediction that retractions of misinformation produce feelings of psychological discomfort that motivate one to disregard the retraction to reduce this discomfort. Studies 1 and 2 found that retractions of misinformation elicit psychological discomfort, and this discomfort predicts continued belief in and use of misinformation. Study 3 showed that the relations between discomfort and continued belief in and use of misinformation are causal in nature by manipulating how participants appraised the meaning of discomfort. These findings suggest that discomfort could play a key mechanistic role in the CIE, and that changing how people interpret this discomfort can make retractions more effective at reducing continued belief in misinformation.

Refuting Spurious COVID-19 Treatment Claims Reduces Demand and Misinformation Sharing

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a surge of health misinformation, which has had serious consequences including direct harm and opportunity costs. We investigated (N = 678) the impact of such misinformation on hypothetical demand (i.e., willingness-to-pay) for an unproven treatment, and propensity to promote (i.e., like or share) misinformation online. This is a novel approach, as previous research has used mainly questionnaire-based measures of reasoning. We also tested two interventions to counteract the misinformation, contrasting a tentative refutation based on materials used by health authorities with an enhanced refutation based on best-practice recommendations. We found prior exposure to misinformation increased misinformation promotion (by 18%). Both tentative and enhanced refutations reduced demand (by 18% and 25%, respectively) as well as misinformation promotion (by 29% and 55%). The fact that enhanced refutations were more effective at curbing promotion of misinformation highlights the need for debunking interventions to follow current best-practice guidelines.