Prebunking interventions based on the psychological theory of "inoculation" can reduce susceptibility to misinformation across cultures. | HKS Misinformation Review

online “fake news” game, Bad News, can confer psychological resistance against common online misinformation strategies across different cultures... “prebunking,” ... can help cultivate “mental antibodies” against fake news... players “walk a mile” in the shoes of a fake news creator... significant and meaningful reductions in the perceived reliability of manipulative content across all languages...

Social media companies, governments, and educational institutions could develop ... “vaccination programs” against misinformation... pre-emptive refutations of weakened arguments... build cognitive resistance against future persuasion attempts...

Traditional inoculation research tends to focus on individual arguments ... using a game-based intervention, participants can also improve in their latent ability to spot misinformation techniques ... fake news stories themselves constantly change ... building immunity against the underlying tactics of misinformation is a more durable strategy ...

participants with different levels of education, gender, age, and ideologies all learned to better spot misinformation. Nonetheless... our sample is self-selected ... more liberals opted into the study than conservatives in most countries ... small consistent decrease with age... older people may be more susceptible to online misinformation ...