The role of the source of prebunks and debunks of misinformation: Online experiments in four EU countries

Abstract

Misinformation surrounding crises poses a significant challenge for public institutions. Understanding the relative effectiveness of different types of interventions to counter misinformation and understanding which segments of the population are most or least receptive to them, is crucial. We conduct a preregistered online experiment involving 5,228 participants from Germany, Greece, Ireland, and Poland. Participants were exposed to misinformation on climate change or Covid-19. In addition, they were pre-emptively exposed to a prebunk, warning them of commonly used misleading strategies, before encountering the misinformation, or a debunking intervention afterward. The source of the intervention (i.e. the European Commission) was either revealed or not. Findings show that both interventions effectively change the four outcome variables in the desired direction in almost all cases, with debunks sometimes being more effective than prebunks. Moreover, revealing the source of the interventions does not significantly impact their overall effectiveness. Although one case of undesirable effect heterogeneity – debunks with revealed source were less effective in decreasing credibility of misinformation for people with low trust in the European Union – was observed, the results mostly suggest that the European Commission, and possibly other institutions, can confidently debunk and prebunk misinformation regardless of the trust level of its recipients.

Misinformation in Humanitarian Programmes

“…In this field report, we have shown how health-related misinformation is a growing challenge for the medical programmes that MSF operates, and for the humanitarian sector at large (Bruns et al, 2022). It can erode trust in healthcare interventions and negatively affect people's health-seeking behaviour, thereby resulting in poor health outcomes.…”

Testing psychological inoculation to reduce reactance to vaccine-related communication

“…Inoculation interventions have also been found to be perceived as more manipulative than debunking interventions presented after misinformation or persuasion attempts (Bruns et al, 2023). Considering the polarized and politicized debate on vaccination, and the existence of vaccine mandates, it is possible that vaccination is perceived as a freedom-threatening topic.…”

Using Behavioral Science for Infodemic Preparedness: The Case of Vaccination Misinformation

“…However, a follow-up study failed to replicate a backfire effect (Haglin, 2017), and the generalizability of the findings of two studies that report a backfire effect (Pluviano et al, 2017, 2019) is limited due to very small sample sizes (N = 120; N = 60). In fact, large-sample studies (N ≈ 13.000) across several countries (N = 13) revealed that corrections of vaccination misinformation are effective during a pandemic and that there is little evidence of backfire (Bruns et al, 2023; Porter et al, 2023).…”

“…Several studies compare inoculation interventions against impactful vaccination misinformation, revealing protective effects against the impact of misinformation (Bruns et al, 2023; Piltch-Loeb et al, 2022; Vivion et al, 2022; Wong, 2016). Among these studies are large-enough sample studies (N > 1000) that find the benefits of inoculation to be robust across countries (Bruns et al, 2023) and across variations of different types of inoculation interventions (Piltch-Loeb et al, 2022).…”

“…Several studies compare inoculation interventions against impactful vaccination misinformation, revealing protective effects against the impact of misinformation (Bruns et al, 2023; Piltch-Loeb et al, 2022; Vivion et al, 2022; Wong, 2016). Among these studies are large-enough sample studies (N > 1000) that find the benefits of inoculation to be robust across countries (Bruns et al, 2023) and across variations of different types of inoculation interventions (Piltch-Loeb et al, 2022). The overall positive pattern is supported by a meta-analysis that revealed a benefit of using inoculation interventions to decrease health misinformation credibility assessments, as well as health-misinformation-sharing intentions (Lu et al, 2023).…”