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There’s a Psychological ‘Vaccine’ Against Misinformation
- cratermoon 4y agoInteresting. We discussed inoculation theory in both my college media studies class and my social science class in many years ago. It wasn't presented as terribly efficacious for broad, complex topics. Small, isolated ideas could be pre-bunked, but when it came to terms to interrelated ideas constituting a world-view, there was not much to go on. I mention world-views to point out that the misinformation problem touches on broad cultural identities. If you've ever seen one of those videos where they interview a person with false beliefs and then show them the evidence, you'll see they usually aren't moved. Their views are based on an interlocking set of beliefs. It suggests that pre-bunking would have to overcome their attitudes about "the mainstream media" or "government overreach". Not an easy task.
- jfengel 4y agoThat assumes that people want to vaccinate themselves against misinformation. I don't think misinformation would be a significant problem if it weren't for the people deliberately seeking it out. It would still be a thing, but more of a personal embarrassment than a national crisis. The article cites people who know they've fallen for misinformation... which means that they at least recognize that "misinformation" is a thing. But here on HN, as elsewhere, a great many people hear "misinformation" and reply, "Yes, the government wants you to think that I'm falling for misinformation, but in fact you're misinformed and only I know the truth". We'd all do well to protect ourselves from misinformation, just was we try not to fall for scams. But scams usually just affect the one who fall for them, while misinformation can have the worst effects on those who don't fall for it. Those effects are imposed by other who believe and act on it.