Understanding and combatting misinformation across 16 countries on six continents.
Journal
Nature human behaviour
ISSN: 2397-3374
Titre abrégé: Nat Hum Behav
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101697750
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
09 2023
09 2023
Historique:
received:
06
04
2022
accepted:
24
05
2023
medline:
25
9
2023
pubmed:
30
6
2023
entrez:
29
6
2023
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
The spread of misinformation online is a global problem that requires global solutions. To that end, we conducted an experiment in 16 countries across 6 continents (N = 34,286; 676,605 observations) to investigate predictors of susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19, and interventions to combat the spread of this misinformation. In every country, participants with a more analytic cognitive style and stronger accuracy-related motivations were better at discerning truth from falsehood; valuing democracy was also associated with greater truth discernment, whereas endorsement of individual responsibility over government support was negatively associated with truth discernment in most countries. Subtly prompting people to think about accuracy had a generally positive effect on the veracity of news that people were willing to share across countries, as did minimal digital literacy tips. Finally, aggregating the ratings of our non-expert participants was able to differentiate true from false headlines with high accuracy in all countries via the 'wisdom of crowds'. The consistent patterns we observe suggest that the psychological factors underlying the misinformation challenge are similar across different regional settings, and that similar solutions may be broadly effective.
Identifiants
pubmed: 37386111
doi: 10.1038/s41562-023-01641-6
pii: 10.1038/s41562-023-01641-6
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
1502-1513Subventions
Organisme : CIHR
Pays : Canada
Commentaires et corrections
Type : ErratumIn
Informations de copyright
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
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