Testing a perspective-taking inoculation intervention against multimodal health misinformation: A conceptual replication

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that perspective-taking inoculation interventions against misinformation – where individuals learn to identify misinformation techniques by adopting a misinformation author's perspective – are effective at improving people’s ability to spot misinformation. However, producing such interventions can often be costly, thus prompting the need for low-cost alternatives. The study tested whether a low-cost, perspective-taking inoculation intervention would replicate findings found in previous tests of misinformation interventions, and whether this increase can be attributed to an increase in motivation to defend against misinformation and counterarguing as predicted by McGuire’s (1964) Inoculation Theory. Using a two-group, between-subjects, pretest-posttest experimental design, 174 participants were randomly assigned to either a misinformation intervention or control condition (learning generic message design practices in social media). While results showed the intervention significantly increased participant’s misinformation detection accuracy (g = 0.37, p < .001), there was no significant difference in accuracy increase between the intervention group and the control group (g = 0.14, p = .34), and indirect effects on accuracy through motivation and counterarguing were not observed. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.