Perceived truth of statements and simulated social media postings: an experimental investigation of source credibility, repeated exposure, and presentation format

The illusory-truth effect and its absence under accuracy-focused processing are robust across contexts of low and high advertising exposure

In present-day digital environments, people frequently encounter content from sources of questionable trustworthiness. Advertising is an untrustworthy source because its purpose is to persuade consumers rather than to provide impartial information. One factor known to enhance the perceived truth of advertising claims is repetition: Repeated advertising claims receive higher truth ratings than novel advertising claims. The phenomenon that repetition enhances processing fluency which enhances truth judgments is known as the illusory-truth effect. Does repetition always enhance truth judgments? For instance, does repetition enhance truth judgments even in contexts with extensive advertising exposure in which enhanced processing fluency could be used to classify a statement as likely coming from an untrustworthy source? In two experiments, we examined the illusory-truth effect by presenting participants with product statements in an exposure phase and collecting truth judgments for both repeated and new statements in a test phase. In a low-advertising-exposure condition, most of the statements were labeled as scientific studies while in the high-advertising-exposure condition, most of the statements were labeled as advertising. When participants read the product statements in the exposure phase, a typical illusory-truth effect was obtained: In the test phase, repeated statements received higher truth ratings than new statements. However, when participants were instructed to adopt an accuracy focus at encoding by judging the truth of the product statements, new statements were judged to be as true as repeated statements. Both the illusory-truth effect and its absence under accuracy-focus instructions were found to be robust across different levels of advertising exposure.

The "multiple exposure effect" (MEE): How multiple exposures to similarly biased online content can cause increasingly larger shifts in opinions and voting preferences

In three randomized, controlled experiments performed on simulations of three popular online platforms - Google search, X/Twitter, and Alexa - with a total of 1,488 undecided, eligible US voters, we asked whether multiple exposures to similarly biased content on those platforms could shift opinions and voting preferences more than a single exposure could. All participants were first shown brief biographies of two political candidates, then asked about their voting preferences, then exposed to biased content on one of our three simulated platforms, and then asked again about their voting preferences. In all experiments, participants in different groups saw biased content favoring one candidate, his or her opponent, or neither. In all the experiments, our primary dependent variable was Vote Manipulation Power (VMP), the percentage increase in the number of participants inclined to vote for one candidate after having viewed content favoring that candidate. In Experiment 1 (on our Google simulator), the VMP increased with successive searches from 14.3% to 20.2% to 22.6%. In Experiment 2 (on our X/Twitter simulator), the VMP increased with successive exposures to biased tweets from 49.7% to 61.8% to 69.1%. In Experiment 3 (on our Alexa simulator), the VMP increased with successive exposures to biased replies from 72.1% to 91.2% to 98.6%. Corresponding shifts were also generally found for how much participants reported liking and trusting the candidates and for participants' overall impression of the candidates. Because multiple exposures to similarly biased content might be common on the internet, we conclude that our previous reports about the possible impact of biased content - always based on single exposures - might have underestimated its possible impact. Findings in our new experiments exemplify what we call the "multiple exposure effect" (MEE).

Debunking COVID-19 vaccine misinformation with an audio drama in Ghana, a randomized control trial

Misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines has hampered their uptake worldwide. In Ghana, a belief that COVID-19 vaccines affect fertility is prevalent and difficult to counter. UNICEF Ghana co-produced a context-driven, behavioral science-based audio drama ('A shot of love') that aimed to debunk this misinformation narrative. In a randomized controlled trial, 13,000 young adults who had previously interacted with UNICEF's Agoo platform were randomized to either control (audio about nutrition) or intervention (audio drama debunking the COVID-19 misinformation). We found that the intervention had a strong protective effect against belief in misinformation, both directly after listening to the audio drama (adjusted Odds Ratio (aOR) 0.45, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.34-0.59) as well as at the one-month follow-up (aOR 0.66, 95% CI 0.49-0.91). Similarly, the intervention had a strong effect on perceived safety of the COVID-19 vaccines directly after listening to the audio drama (aOR 1.56, 95% CI 1.22-2.00) and at one-month follow-up (aOR 1.53, 95% CI 1.13-2.07). Overall, our behavioral science-based, context-driven audio drama was effective in reducing the strength of belief in COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and increasing the perceived safety of the vaccines in Ghana.

Addressing Susceptibility to Non-Prescription Substances for Weight Loss Among Immigrant Hispanic College Students: A Pilot Study

Non-prescription weight loss substances, such as supplements and herbal remedies, can be harmful. Hispanic immigrant students may be highly susceptible to these substances, especially those advertised on social media. This study was a feasibility/acceptability pilot trial of an intervention to reduce this susceptibility. Latino or Hispanic immigrant students aged 18-35 were randomized to receive either a single-session, culturally tailored online intervention (Redes Sociales Para la Salud), or a dose-matched intervention focused on general support for immigrant students (Immigrant Support). Following the intervention, participants answered quantitative and open-ended questions about intervention satisfaction, and completed measures of susceptibility to non-prescription weight loss substances. Participants additionally completed measures of social media use and social norm perceptions. Fifty-five participants enrolled in the study, and 32 had primary outcome data. Participants were majority female (62.5%) and graduate students (81.3%) with a mean BMI of 24.6 ± 3.5 kg/m2. Ratings of intervention satisfaction were moderate (3.5-3.7 out of 5). In open-ended questions, participants identified areas of high satisfaction (cultural appropriateness, learning new information) and suggested improvements (increase interactivity, improve presentation appearance). Considering signal of an effect, participant ratings indicated that susceptibility to non-prescription weight loss substances was lower after Redes Sociales Para la Salud compared to the control intervention. In exploratory analyses, susceptibility to non-prescription weight loss substances was positively associated with extent of social media use (r = 0.41-0.46) and social norms about use of these substances (r = 0.38). With additional refinement, the Redes Sociales Para la Salud has promise for addressing susceptibility to non-prescription weight loss substances.

Knowledge revision processes during reading: How pictures influence the activation of outdated information

Outdated information (i.e., information that is not or no longer accurate) continues to be automatically activated during reading and can hinder learning processes. Thus, it is important to understand which factors influence the activation of outdated information and, therefore, knowledge revision processes. In three online experiments, we investigated how illustrating updated or outdated information via pictures influences the activation of outdated information. In Experiments 1 (N = 421) and 2 (N = 422), we varied whether participants read texts containing outdated information that was later updated (outdated text) or texts containing only updated information (consistent text). In addition, the updated information was or was not illustrated by a picture. In Experiment 3 (N = 441), participants read outdated texts, and we varied whether the outdated, the updated, or no information was illustrated. In all experiments, we measured reading times for a target sentence referring to the updated information and the sentence following the target sentence. Results showed that target sentences' reading times were faster for illustrated than for non-illustrated texts (Experiments 1 and 2). Moreover, reading times were longer when the outdated information was illustrated than when the updated information was illustrated (Experiment 3). These results suggest that pictures overall facilitate cognitive processes during reading, but their content matters: Pictures showing the updated information had a greater impact on reading times than pictures showing the outdated information. The results extend existing theories on knowledge revision but also reading comprehension, by demonstrating how pictures might influence cognitive processes during reading.

Question framing affects accurate-inaccurate discrimination in responses to sharing questions, but not in responses to accuracy questions

Previous research suggests that even when people are capable of judging to the best of their knowledge whether claims are accurate or inaccurate, they do not sufficiently discriminate between accurate and inaccurate information when asked to consider whether they would share stories on social media. However, question framing ("To the best of your knowledge…", "Would you consider…?") differed between the questions about accuracy and the questions about sharing. Here we examine the effects of question framing on responses to accuracy questions and responses to sharing questions. The framing of accuracy questions had no effect on accurate-inaccurate discrimination. In contrast, accurate-inaccurate discrimination in response to sharing questions increased when participants were asked to respond, to the best of their knowledge, whether they would share claims compared to when they were asked whether they would consider sharing stories. At a theoretical level, the findings support the inattention-based account, according to which contextual cues shifting the focus toward accuracy can enhance accurate-inaccurate discrimination in sharing responses. At a methodological level, these findings suggest that researchers should carefully attend to the verbal framing of questions about sharing information on social media, as the framing may significantly influence participants' focus on accuracy.

Discrediting health disinformation sources: Advantages of highlighting low expertise

Disinformation is false information spread intentionally, and it is particularly harmful for public health. We conducted three preregistered experiments (N = 1,568) investigating how to discredit dubious health sources and disinformation attributed to them. Experiments 1 and 2 used cancer information and recruited representative U.S. samples. Participants read a vignette about a seemingly reputable source and rated their credibility. Participants were randomly assigned to a control condition or interventions that (a) corrected the source's disinformation, (b) highlighted the source's low expertise, or (c) corrected disinformation and highlighted low expertise (Experiment 2). Next, participants rated their belief in the source's disinformation claims and rerated their credibility. We found that highlighting low expertise was equivalent to (or more effective than) other interventions for reducing belief in disinformation. Highlighting low expertise was also more effective than correcting disinformation for reducing source credibility, although combining it with correcting disinformation outperformed low expertise alone (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 extended this paradigm to vaccine information in vaccinated and unvaccinated subgroups. A conflict-of-interest intervention and 1 week retention interval were also added. Highlighting low expertise was the most effective intervention in both vaccinated and unvaccinated participants for reducing belief in disinformation and source credibility. It was also the only condition where belief change was sustained over 1 week, but only in the vaccinated subgroup. In sum, highlighting a source's lack of expertise is a promising option for fact-checkers and health practitioners to reduce belief in disinformation and perceived credibility. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Don't believe them! Reducing misinformation influence through source discreditation

Misinformation often continues to influence people's reasoning even after it has been corrected. Therefore, an important aim of applied cognition research is to identify effective measures to counter misinformation. One frequently recommended but hitherto insufficiently tested strategy is source discreditation, that is, attacking the credibility of a misinformation source. In two experiments, we tested whether immediate source discreditation could reduce people's subsequent reliance on fictional event-related misinformation. In Experiment 1, the discreditation targeted a person source of misinformation, pointing to a conflict of interest. This intervention was compared with a commonly employed message-focused correction and a combination of correction and discreditation. The discreditation alone was effective, but less effective than a correction, with the combination of both most effective. Experiment 2 compared discreditations that targeted a person versus a media source of misinformation, pointing either to a conflict of interest or a poor track record of communication. Discreditations were effective for both types of sources, although track-record discreditations were less effective when the misinformation source was a media outlet compared to a person. Results demonstrate that continued influence of misinformation is shaped by social as well as cognitive factors and that source discreditation is a broadly applicable misinformation countermeasure.

The Influence of Affective Empathy on Online News Belief: The Moderated Mediation of State Empathy and News Type

The belief in online news has become a topical issue. Previous studies demonstrated the role emotion plays in fake news vulnerability. However, few studies have explored the effect of empathy on online news belief. This study investigated the relationship between trait empathy, state empathy, belief in online news, and the potential moderating effect of news type. One hundred and forty undergraduates evaluated 50 online news pieces (25 real, 25 fake) regarding their belief, state empathy, valence, arousal, and familiarity. Trait empathy data were collected using the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. State empathy was positively correlated with affective empathy in trait empathy and believability, and affective empathy was positively correlated with believability. The influence of affective empathy on news belief was partially mediated by state empathy and regulated by news type (fake, real). We discuss the influence of empathy on online news belief and its internal processes. This study shares some unique insights for researchers, practitioners, social media users, and social media platform providers.

Source-credibility information and social norms improve truth discernment and reduce engagement with misinformation online

Misinformation on social media is a pervasive challenge. In this study (N = 415) a social-media simulation was used to test two potential interventions for countering misinformation: a credibility badge and a social norm. The credibility badge was implemented by associating accounts, including participants', with a credibility score. Participants' credibility score was dynamically updated depending on their engagement with true and false posts. To implement the social-norm intervention, participants were provided with both a descriptive norm (i.e., most people do not share misinformation) and an injunctive norm (i.e., sharing misinformation is the wrong thing to do). Both interventions were effective. The social-norm intervention led to reduced belief in false claims and improved discrimination between true and false claims. It also had some positive impact on social-media engagement, although some effects were not robust to alternative analysis specifications. The presence of credibility badges led to greater belief in true claims, lower belief in false claims, and improved discrimination. The credibility-badge intervention also had robust positive impacts on social-media engagement, leading to increased flagging and decreased liking and sharing of false posts. Cumulatively, the results suggest that both interventions have potential to combat misinformation and improve the social-media information landscape.

[Mis- and disinformation in social media: mitigating risks in digital health communication]

Misinformation and disinformation in social media have become a challenge for effective public health measures. Here, we examine factors that influence believing and sharing false information, both misinformation and disinformation, at individual, social, and contextual levels and discuss intervention possibilities.At the individual level, knowledge deficits, lack of skills, and emotional motivation have been associated with believing in false information. Lower health literacy, a conspiracy mindset and certain beliefs increase susceptibility to false information. At the social level, the credibility of information sources and social norms influence the sharing of false information. At the contextual level, emotions and the repetition of messages affect belief in and sharing of false information.Interventions at the individual level involve measures to improve knowledge and skills. At the social level, addressing social processes and social norms can reduce the sharing of false information. At the contextual level, regulatory approaches involving social networks is considered an important point of intervention.Social inequalities play an important role in the exposure to and processing of misinformation. It remains unclear to which degree the susceptibility to belief in and share misinformation is an individual characteristic and/or context dependent. Complex interventions are required that should take into account multiple influencing factors.

The (Mis)Information Game: A social media simulator

Given the potential negative impact reliance on misinformation can have, substantial effort has gone into understanding the factors that influence misinformation belief and propagation. However, despite the rise of social media often being cited as a fundamental driver of misinformation exposure and false beliefs, how people process misinformation on social media platforms has been under-investigated. This is partially due to a lack of adaptable and ecologically valid social media testing paradigms, resulting in an over-reliance on survey software and questionnaire-based measures. To provide researchers with a flexible tool to investigate the processing and sharing of misinformation on social media, this paper presents The Misinformation Game-an easily adaptable, open-source online testing platform that simulates key characteristics of social media. Researchers can customize posts (e.g., headlines, images), source information (e.g., handles, avatars, credibility), and engagement information (e.g., a post's number of likes and dislikes). The platform allows a range of response options for participants (like, share, dislike, flag) and supports comments. The simulator can also present posts on individual pages or in a scrollable feed, and can provide customized dynamic feedback to participants via changes to their follower count and credibility score, based on how they interact with each post. Notably, no specific programming skills are required to create studies using the simulator. Here, we outline the key features of the simulator and provide a non-technical guide for use by researchers. We also present results from two validation studies. All the source code and instructions are freely available online at https://misinfogame.com .

Understanding belief in political statements using a model-driven experimental approach: a registered report

Misinformation harms society by affecting citizens' beliefs and behaviour. Recent research has shown that partisanship and cognitive reflection (i.e. engaging in analytical thinking) play key roles in the acceptance of misinformation. However, the relative importance of these factors remains a topic of ongoing debate. In this registered study, we tested four hypotheses on the relationship between each factor and the belief in statements made by Argentine politicians. Participants (N = 1353) classified fact-checked political statements as true or false, completed a cognitive reflection test, and reported their voting preferences. Using Signal Detection Theory and Bayesian modeling, we found a reliable positive association between political concordance and overall belief in a statement (median = 0.663, CI95 = [0.640, 0.685]), a reliable positive association between cognitive reflection and scepticism (median = 0.039, CI95 = [0.006, 0.072]), a positive but unreliable association between cognitive reflection and truth discernment (median = 0.016, CI95 = [- 0.015, 0.046]) and a negative but unreliable association between cognitive reflection and partisan bias (median = - 0.016, CI95 = [- 0.037, 0.006]). Our results highlight the need to further investigate the relationship between cognitive reflection and partisanship in different contexts and formats. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 22 August 2022. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EBRGC .

Item-method directed forgetting and perceived truth of news headlines

Research on item-method directed forgetting (IMDF) suggests that memories can be voluntarily forgotten. IMDF is however usually examined with relatively simple study materials, such as single words or pictures. In the present study, we examined voluntary forgetting of news headlines from (presumably) untrustworthy sources. Experiment 1 found intact IMDF when to-be-forgotten headlines were characterised as untrustworthy and to-be-remembered headlines were characterised as trustworthy. Experiment 2 separated remember/forget cues and trustworthiness prompts. Forget cues alone had a large effect on memory, but only a small reducing effect on perceived truth. In contrast, trustworthiness prompts alone had essentially no effect on memory, but a large effect on perceived truth. Finally, Experiment 3 fully crossed forget/remember cues and trustworthiness prompts, revealing that forget cues can reduce memory irrespective of whether headlines are characterised as trustworthy or untrustworthy. Moreover, forget cues may bias source attributions, which can explain their small reducing effect on perceived truth. Overall, this work suggests that news headlines can be voluntarily forgotten. At least when people are motivated to forget information from untrustworthy sources, such forgetting may be helpful for curtailing the spread of false information.

The role and influence of perceived experts in an anti-vaccine misinformation community

The role of perceived experts (i.e., medical professionals and biomedical scientists) as potential anti-vaccine influencers has not been characterized systematically. We describe the prevalence and importance of anti-vaccine perceived experts by constructing a coengagement network based on a Twitter data set containing over 4.2 million posts from April 2021. The coengagement network primarily broke into two large communities that differed in their stance toward COVID-19 vaccines, and misinformation was predominantly shared by the anti-vaccine community. Perceived experts had a sizable presence within the anti-vaccine community and shared academic sources at higher rates compared to others in that community. Perceived experts occupied important network positions as central anti-vaccine nodes and bridges between the anti- and pro-vaccine communities. Perceived experts received significantly more engagements than other individuals within the anti- and pro-vaccine communities and there was no significant difference in the influence boost for perceived experts between the two communities. Interventions designed to reduce the impact of perceived experts who spread anti-vaccine misinformation may be warranted.

Distractions, analytical thinking and falling for fake news: A survey of psychological factors

Analytical thinking safeguards us against believing or spreading fake news. In various forms, this common assumption has been reported, investigated, or implemented in fake news education programs. Some have associated this assumption with the inverse claim, that distractions from analytical thinking may render us vulnerable to believing or spreading fake news. This paper surveys the research done between 2016 and 2022 on psychological factors influencing one's susceptibility to believing or spreading fake news, considers which of the psychological factors are plausible distractors to one's exercise of analytical thinking, and discusses some implications of considering them as distractors to analytical thinking. From these, the paper draws five conclusions: (1) It is not analytical thinking per se, but analytical thinking directed to evaluating the truth that safeguards us from believing or spreading fake news. (2) While psychological factors can distract us from exercising analytical thinking and they can also distract us in exercising analytical thinking. (3) Whether a psychological factor functions as a distractor from analytical thinking or in analytical thinking may depend on contextual factors. (4) Measurements of analytical thinking may not indicate vulnerability to believing or spreading fake news. (5) The relevance of motivated reasoning to our tendency to believe fake news should not yet be dismissed. These findings may be useful to guide future research in the intersection of analytical thinking and susceptibility to believing or spreading fake news.

One Dose Is Not Enough: The Beneficial Effect of Corrective COVID-19 Information Is Diminished If Followed by Misinformation

The World Health Organization (WHO) released a series of mythbuster infographics to combat misinformation during the COVID-19 infodemic. While the corrective effects of such debunking interventions have typically been examined in the immediate aftermath of intervention delivery; the durability of these corrective effects and their resilience against subsequent misinformation remains poorly understood. To this end, we asked younger and older adults to rate the truthfulness and credibility of 10 statements containing misinformation about common COVID-19 myths, as well as their willingness to share the statements through social media. They did this three times, before and after experimental interventions within a single study session. In keeping with established findings, exposure to the WHO's myth-busting infographics-(a) improved participants' ratings of the misinformation statements as untruthful and uncredible and (b) reduced their reported willingness to share the statements. However, within-subject data revealed these beneficial effects were diminished if corrective information was presented shortly by misinformation, but the effects remained when further corrective information was presented. Throughout the study, younger adults rated the misinformation statements as more truthful and credible and were more willing to share them. Our data reveal that the benefit of COVID-19 debunking interventions may be short-lived if followed shortly by misinformation. Still, the effect can be maintained in the presence of further corrective information. These outcomes provide insights into the effectiveness and durability of corrective information and can influence strategies for tackling health-related misinformation, especially in younger adults.

The Social Contexts of Birthing People with Public- and Private-Payer Prenatal Care: Illuminating an Understudied Aspect of the Patient Experience

Purpose

In pursuit of more equitable and person-centered health care, patients and professional medical societies increasingly call for better clinician understanding of patients' perspectives and social contexts. A foundational but understudied aspect of patients' social contexts are the ideas they encounter about health-related behaviors. We investigated this aspect of the social contexts of birthing people, comparing those with public versus private insurance to discover setting-specific insights.

Methods

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, we created an original survey featuring 29 statements about 12 prenatal, perinatal, and postpartum health behaviors (e.g., drinking alcohol, epidural use, breastfeeding). Participants were 248 individuals receiving prenatal care in Northern California in 2009-2011, split evenly between public- and private-payer coverage. Participants reported whether they were familiar or unfamiliar with each statement.

Results

Ninety-eight percent of all participants had heard contradictory ideas about ≥1 health behavior (mean=3.9 behaviors for public- and 5.4 for private-coverage respondents). For 20 of the 29 behavior-related ideas, exposure varied significantly by coverage type. Among other differences, public-coverage respondents were much more familiar with ideas related to risk and constrained autonomy (e.g., that serious perinatal complications are common; that new mothers should try to breastfeed even if they do not want to).

Conclusions

Birthing people are exposed to a wide range of ideas about health behaviors, many of which vary by the structural systems in which they are embedded. Understanding and engaging this complexity can help clinicians to provide more respectful, person-centered, and equitable maternity care.

Pourquoi croyons-nous aux fake news ?☆

Ces dernières années, les fake news ont connu une propagation exponentielle, en particulier depuis l’élection américaine de Donald Trump et la pandémie de la COVID-19. La recherche s’est intéressée à la création, à l’utilisation, au partage et à l’identification des fake news et cherche à mettre en œuvre des moyens visant à enrayer le flux de fausses informations et empêcher que l’on y croie. Cette mise à jour aborde une partie seulement de la problématique des fake news et met l’accent sur les déterminants qui favorisent la croyance aux fausses nouvelles ; à noter que la rhumatologie est peu représentée. Certains facteurs sont directement liés à l’écosystème des médias et des réseaux sociaux comme la disponibilité et la propagation rapide des fake news , la non-sélection des informations relayées sur ces plateformes et le fait que les individus peuvent être à la fois consommateurs et créateurs de fake news . Les facteurs cognitifs occupent une place importante comme le biais de confirmation, l’appartenance politique, l’exposition répétée aux fausses nouvelles et le raisonnement intuitif. L’absence de connaissances scientifiques et un faible niveau d’études contribuent également à croire aux fake news . Les facteurs psychologiques regroupent l’attrait de la nouveauté, l’état émotionnel des individus et le contenu émotionnel des fake news . Un niveau élevé de littéracie numérique réduit la vulnérabilité aux fake news . Des facteurs sociologiques, tels que les communautés en ligne (ou chambres d’écho) et le rôle des groupes de pression, ont été identifiés. Des implications pratiques peuvent être déduites pour limiter les fake news  : l’éducation aux médias et l’utilisation de mises en garde contre les fake news , le journalisme fondé sur des données probantes et la vérification des faits, la régulation des réseaux sociaux, la collaboration des plateformes médiatiques avec des organismes de fact-checking , les messages d’alerte sur les réseaux et les solutions de détection digitale. Les professionnels de santé doivent mieux comprendre les facteurs qui alimentent la croyance aux fake news . L’identification de ces déterminants pourrait ainsi faciliter leur rôle de conseil auprès des patients concernant le phénomène de désinformation.

Factors Moderating the Link between Personal Recounts of COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects Viewed on Social Media and Viewer Postvaccination Experience

While social media exposure is known to influence vaccine hesitancy, its impact on postvaccination experience remains relatively unknown. This retrospective cross-sectional study explored whether various psychosocial and individual factors moderate the association between social media exposure to personal recounts of COVID-19 vaccine side effects and the viewer’s subsequent postvaccination side effect experience. Adults residing in Australia, who were fully vaccinated with two COVID-19 vaccine doses (n = 280) completed an online survey. The more severe the personal recounts of post-COVID-19 vaccination side effects participants were exposed to on social media, the more severe their own postvaccination side effects were following both their first (β = 0.261, p < 0.001) and second dose (β = 0.299, p < 0.001). This association was stronger among those with greater vaccine side effect worry, elevated negative emotional states such as anxiety and stress, and a stronger proclivity for using social media over mainstream media for COVID-19 vaccine side effect information. As such, not only does social influence appear to exacerbate or trigger postvaccination side effects, but a range of psychosocial and situational factors moderate this association. Health organisations and government bodies could minimise the negative effects of social media exposure in future health outbreaks by countering treatment misperceptions on social media platforms as they arise.

Fake news: Why do we believe it?

Fake news dissemination has increased greatly in recent years, with peaks during the US presidential elections and the COVID-19 pandemic. Research has addressed fake news creation, consumption, sharing, and detection as well as approaches to counteract it and prevent people from believing it. This update addresses only a part of the fake news-related issues and focuses on determinants leading individuals to believe fake news, noting that rheumatology is scarcely represented. Some determinants relate to the ecosystem of media and social networks, such as the availability and rapid spread of fake news, the unselected information on platforms and the fact that consumers can become creators of fake news. Cognitive factors are important, such as confirmation bias, political partisanship, prior exposure and intuitive thinking. Low science knowledge and low educational level are also involved. Psychological factors include attraction to novelty, high emotional state, and the emotionally evocative content of fake news. High digital literacy protects against believing fake news. Sociological factors such as online communities, or echo chambers, and the role of pressure groups have been identified. The implication for practice can be deduced, including education in media literacy and warning tips, reliable journalism and fact-checking, social media regulation, partnership of media platforms' with fact-checkers, warning messages on networks, and digital detection solutions. Health professionals need to better understand the factors that cause individuals to believe fake news. Identifying these determinants may help them in their counseling role when talking to patients about misinformation.

Lateral reading and monetary incentives to spot disinformation about science

Disinformation about science can impose enormous economic and public health burdens. A recently proposed strategy to help online users recognise false content is to follow the techniques of professional fact checkers, such as looking for information on other websites (lateral reading) and looking beyond the first results suggested by search engines (click restraint). In two preregistered online experiments (N = 5387), we simulated a social media environment and tested two interventions, one in the form of a pop-up meant to advise participants to follow such techniques, the other based on monetary incentives. We measured participants’ ability to identify whether information was scientifically valid or invalid. Analysis of participants’ search style reveals that both monetary incentives and pop-up increased the use of fact-checking strategies. Monetary incentives were overall effective in increasing accuracy, whereas the pop-up worked when the source of information was unknown. Pop-up and incentives, when used together, produced a cumulative effect on accuracy. We suggest that monetary incentives enhance content relevance, and could be combined with fact-checking techniques to counteract disinformation.

Health communication in and out of public health emergencies: to persuade or to inform?

Much health communication during the COVID-19 pandemic has been designed to persuade people more than to inform them. For example, messages like "masks save lives" are intended to compel people to wear face masks, not to enable them to make an informed decision about whether to wear a face mask or to understand the justification for a mask mandate. Both persuading people and informing them are reasonable goals for health communication. However, those goals can sometimes be in conflict. In this article, we discuss potential conflicts between seeking to persuade or to inform people, the use of spin to persuade people, the ethics of persuasion, and implications for health communication in the context of the pandemic and generally. Decisions to persuade people rather than enable them to make an informed choice may be justified, but the basis for those decisions should be transparent and the evidence should not be distorted. We suggest nine principles to guide decisions by health authorities about whether to try to persuade people.

Perceived Epistemic Authority (Source Credibility) of a TV Interviewer Moderates the Media Bias Effect Caused by His Nonverbal Behavior

The Media Bias Effect (MBE) represents the biasing influence of the nonverbal behavior of a TV interviewer on viewers' impressions of the interviewee. In the MBE experiment, participants view a 4-min made-up political interview in which they are exposed only to the nonverbal behavior of the actors. The interviewer is friendly toward the politician in one experimental condition and hostile in the other. The interviewee was a confederate filmed in the same studio, and his clips are identical in the two conditions. This experiment was used successfully in a series of studies in several countries (Babad and Peer in J Nonverbal Behav 34(1):57-78, 2010. 10.1007/s10919-009-0078-x) and was administered in the present research. The present investigation focused on the interviewer's source credibility and its persuasive influence. The viewers filled out questionnaires about their impressions of both the interviewer and the interviewee. A component of "interviewer's authority" was derived in PCA, with substantial variance in viewers' impressions of the interviewer. In our design, we preferred the conception of Epistemic Authority (Kruglanski et al. in Adv Exp Soc Psychol 37:345-392, 2005)-based on viewers' subjective perceptions for deriving authority status-to the conventional design of source credibility studies, where dimensions of authority are pre-determined as independent variables. The results demonstrated that viewers who perceived the interviewer as an effective leader demonstrated a clear MBE and were susceptible to his influencing bias, but no bias effect was found for viewers who did not perceive the interviewer as an effective leader. Thus, Epistemic Authority (source credibility) moderated the Media Bias Effect.

Credibility of scientific information on social media: Variation by platform, genre and presence of formal credibility cues

Responding to calls to take a more active role in communicating their research findings, scientists are increasingly using open online platforms, such as Twitter, to engage in science communication or to publicize their work. Given the ease with which misinformation spreads on these platforms, it is important for scientists to present their findings in a manner that appears credible. To examine the extent to which the online presentation of science information relates to its perceived credibility, we designed and conducted two surveys on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. In the first survey, participants rated the credibility of science information on Twitter compared with the same information in other media, and in the second, participants rated the credibility of tweets with modified characteristics: presence of an image, text sentiment, and the number of likes/retweets. We find that similar information about scientific findings is perceived as less credible when presented on Twitter compared to other platforms, and that perceived credibility increases when presented with recognizable features of a scientific article. On a platform as widely distrusted as Twitter, use of these features may allow researchers who regularly use Twitter for research-related networking and communication to present their findings in the most credible formats.

The Psychology of Fake News

We synthesize a burgeoning literature investigating why people believe and share false or highly misleading news online. Contrary to a common narrative whereby politics drives susceptibility to fake news, people are 'better' at discerning truth from falsehood (despite greater overall belief) when evaluating politically concordant news. Instead, poor truth discernment is associated with lack of careful reasoning and relevant knowledge, and the use of heuristics such as familiarity. Furthermore, there is a substantial disconnect between what people believe and what they share on social media. This dissociation is largely driven by inattention, more so than by purposeful sharing of misinformation. Thus, interventions can successfully nudge social media users to focus more on accuracy. Crowdsourced veracity ratings can also be leveraged to improve social media ranking algorithms.