Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence

John Cook; Stephan Lewandowsky; Ullrich K H Ecker

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0175799

Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence

PLoS One. 2017 May 5;12(5):e0175799. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0175799. eCollection 2017.

Authors

John Cook^{1

2}, Stephan Lewandowsky^{2

3}, Ullrich K H Ecker²

Affiliations

¹ Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States of America.
² School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
³ School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Misinformation can undermine a well-functioning democracy. For example, public misconceptions about climate change can lead to lowered acceptance of the reality of climate change and lowered support for mitigation policies. This study experimentally explored the impact of misinformation about climate change and tested several pre-emptive interventions designed to reduce the influence of misinformation. We found that false-balance media coverage (giving contrarian views equal voice with climate scientists) lowered perceived consensus overall, although the effect was greater among free-market supporters. Likewise, misinformation that confuses people about the level of scientific agreement regarding anthropogenic global warming (AGW) had a polarizing effect, with free-market supporters reducing their acceptance of AGW and those with low free-market support increasing their acceptance of AGW. However, we found that inoculating messages that (1) explain the flawed argumentation technique used in the misinformation or that (2) highlight the scientific consensus on climate change were effective in neutralizing those adverse effects of misinformation. We recommend that climate communication messages should take into account ways in which scientific content can be distorted, and include pre-emptive inoculation messages.

MeSH terms

Climate Change*
Information Services / standards*

Grants and funding

Support was provided by the Australian Research Council, the Royal Society, and the Psychonomics Society. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.