Inoculation against conspiracy theories: A consumer side approach to India's fake news problem

Iyengar, Ananya; Gupta, Priyanka; Priya, Nidhi

doi:10.1002/acp.3995

Cited by 18 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Given that this result has been observed across five papers amounting to a total of 13 experiments (eight treatment conditions and five control conditions) and 17,867 participants, we believe that it will be reproducible with participants from similar subject pools, specifically WEIRD samples. However, we do not have evidence that our findings will occur for non-WEIRD samples (see Iyengar et al, 2022). In most of the reanalyzed studies, the stimuli consisted of a limited number of true and fake news items, the latter of which were often created by the researchers.…”

Section: Constraints On Generalitymentioning

confidence: 82%

Gamified inoculation interventions do not improve discrimination between true and fake news: Reanalyzing existing research with receiver operating characteristic analysis.

Modirrousta-Galian¹,

Higham²

2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Gamified inoculation interventions designed to improve the detection of online misinformation are becoming increasingly prevalent. Two of the most notable interventions of this kind are Bad News and Go Viral!. To assess their efficacy, prior research has typically used pre–post designs in which participants rated the reliability or manipulativeness of true and fake news items before and after playing these games, while most of the time also including a control group who played an irrelevant game (Tetris) or did nothing at all. Mean ratings were then compared between pre-tests and post-tests and/or between the control and experimental conditions. Critically, these prior studies have not separated response bias effects (overall tendency to respond “true” or “fake”) from discrimination (ability to distinguish between true and fake news, commonly dubbed discernment). We reanalyzed the results from five prior studies using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, a method common to signal detection theory that allows for discrimination to be measured free from response bias. Across the studies, when comparable true and fake news items were used, Bad News and Go Viral! did not improve discrimination, but rather elicited more “false” responses to all news items (more conservative responding). These novel findings suggest that the current gamified inoculation interventions designed to improve fake news detection are not as effective as previously thought and may even be counterproductive. They also demonstrate the usefulness of ROC analysis, a largely unexploited method in this setting, for assessing the effectiveness of any intervention designed to improve fake news detection.

show abstract

Section: Constraints On Generalitymentioning

confidence: 82%

Gamified inoculation interventions do not improve discrimination between true and fake news: Reanalyzing existing research with receiver operating characteristic analysis.

Modirrousta-Galian¹,

Higham²

2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, we do not have evidence that our findings will occur for non-WEIRD samples (see Iyengar et al, 2022). In most of the reanalyzed studies, the stimuli consisted of a limited number of true and fake news items, the latter of which were often created by the researchers.…”

Section: Constraints On Generalitymentioning

confidence: 82%

Gamified Inoculation Interventions Do Not Improve Discrimination Between True and Fake News: Reanalyzing Existing Research With Receiver Operating Characteristic Analysis

Modirrousta-Galian¹,

Higham²

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Gamified psychological interventions designed to improve detection of online misinformation are becoming increasingly prevalent. Two of the most notable interventions of this kind are Bad News and Go Viral!. To assess their efficacy, prior research has typically used pre-post designs in which participants rated the reliability or manipulativeness of true and fake news items before and after playing these games, while most of the time also including a control group who played an irrelevant game (i.e., Tetris) or did nothing at all. Mean ratings were then compared between pre-tests and post-tests and/or between the control and experimental conditions. Critically, these prior studies have not separated response bias effects (overall tendency to respond “true” or “fake”) from discrimination (ability to distinguish between true and fake news, commonly dubbed discernment). We reanalyzed the results from five prior studies using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, a method unique to signal detection theory (SDT) that allows for discrimination to be measured free from response bias. Across the studies, when comparable true and fake news items were used, we found that Bad News and Go Viral! did not improve discrimination, but rather elicited more conservative responding (i.e., responding “true” less often). These novel findings suggest that the current gamified psychological interventions designed to improve fake news detection are not as effective as previously thought. They also demonstrate the usefulness of ROC analysis, a largely unexploited method in this setting, for assessing the effectiveness of any intervention designed to improve fake news detection.

show abstract

“…Roozenbeck et al developed, by analogy to the process of medical immunization, the concept of an ‘inoculation’ that is supposed to reduce susceptibility to misinformation across cultures [ 94 ]. Other authors later replicated this approach [ 95 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The association of conspiracy beliefs and the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination: a cross-sectional study

Kowalska-Duplaga

Duplaga

2023

BMC Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that health denialism might be an important determinant of adherence to preventive measures during epidemic challenges. Conspiracy beliefs seem to be one of the most visible manifestations of denialism in society. Despite intensive efforts to promote COVID-19 vaccinations, the number of citizens reluctant to get vaccinated was very large in many countries. The main aim of this study was the analysis of the association between the acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccination and conspiracy beliefs among adult Internet users in Poland. The analysis was based on data from a survey performed on a sample of 2008 respondents in October 2021. Uni- and multivariable logistic regression models were applied to evaluate the association between attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination and generic conspiracist, vaccine-conspiracy, and COVID-19-related conspiracy beliefs. In the multivariable model, the effect of conspiracy beliefs was adjusted for the level of vaccine hesitancy, future anxiety, political sympathies, and socio-demographic variables. Univariate regression models showed that COVID-19 vaccination acceptance is significantly lower among respondents with higher levels of all three types of conspiracy beliefs. In the multivariable model, the effect of COVID-19-related and vaccine conspiracy beliefs, but not generic conspiracist beliefs, was maintained after adjusting for vaccine hesitancy. We conclude that conspiracy beliefs should be treated as a potential indicator of lower adherence to preventive measures during epidemic challenges. The respondents revealing a high level of conspirational thinking are a potential group for intensified actions which employ health educational and motivational interventions.

show abstract

Inoculation against conspiracy theories: A consumer side approach to India's fake news problem

Cited by 18 publications

References 25 publications

Gamified inoculation interventions do not improve discrimination between true and fake news: Reanalyzing existing research with receiver operating characteristic analysis.

Gamified inoculation interventions do not improve discrimination between true and fake news: Reanalyzing existing research with receiver operating characteristic analysis.

Gamified Inoculation Interventions Do Not Improve Discrimination Between True and Fake News: Reanalyzing Existing Research With Receiver Operating Characteristic Analysis

The association of conspiracy beliefs and the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination: a cross-sectional study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About