{"id":15290,"date":"2017-05-15T03:11:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T07:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/goldstocksforex.com\/?p=15290"},"modified":"2017-05-15T03:11:45","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T07:11:45","slug":"inoculation-theory-using-misinformation-to-fight-misinformation-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepatientinvestor.com\/index.php\/2017\/05\/15\/inoculation-theory-using-misinformation-to-fight-misinformation-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Inoculation theory: Using misinformation to fight misinformation | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n A shot of fake news now and your defenses are raised in the future?
\n funnyangel\/Shutterstock.com.<\/a><\/span>
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John Cook<\/a>, George Mason University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As a psychologist researching misinformation, I focus on reducing its influence. Essentially, my goal is to put myself out of a job. \"The<\/p>\n

Recent developments indicate that I haven\u2019t been doing a very good job of it. Misinformation, fake news and \u201calternative facts\u201d are more prominent than ever. The Oxford Dictionary named \u201cpost-truth\u201d<\/a> as the 2016 word of the year. Science and scientific evidence have been under assault.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, science does have a means to protect itself, and it comes from a branch of psychological research known as inoculation theory<\/a>. This borrows from the logic of vaccines: A little bit of something bad helps you resist a full-blown case. In my newly published research<\/a>, I\u2019ve tried exposing people to a weak form of misinformation in order to inoculate them against the real thing \u2013 with promising results.<\/p>\n

Two ways misinformation damages<\/h2>\n

Misinformation is being generated and disseminated at prolific rates. A recent study comparing arguments against climate science versus policy arguments against action on climate found that science denial is on the relative increase<\/a>. And recent research indicates these types of effort have an impact on people\u2019s perceptions and science literacy.<\/p>\n

A recent study led by psychology researcher Sander van der Linden found that misinformation about climate change<\/a> has a significant impact on public perceptions about climate change. <\/p>\n

The misinformation they used in their experiment was the most shared climate article in 2016<\/a>. It\u2019s a petition, known as the Global Warming Petition Project, featuring 31,000 people with a bachelor of science or higher, who signed a statement saying humans aren\u2019t disrupting climate. This single article lowered readers\u2019 perception of scientific consensus. The extent that people accept there\u2019s a scientific consensus about climate change is what researchers refer to as a \u201cgateway belief,\u201d<\/a> influencing attitudes about climate change such as support for climate action.<\/p>\n

At the same time that van der Linden was conducting his experiment in the U.S., I was on the other side of the planet in Australia conducting my own research into the impact of misinformation<\/a>. By coincidence, I used the same myth, taking verbatim text from the Global Warming Petition Project. After showing the misinformation, I asked people to estimate the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming, in order to measure any effect.<\/p>\n

I found similar results, with misinformation reducing people\u2019s perception of the scientific consensus. Moreover, the misinformation affected some more than others. The more politically conservative a person was, the greater the influence of the misinformation. <\/p>\n

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\n Response to misinformation about climate change.<\/span>
\n Cook et al. (2017)<\/span>, CC BY-ND<\/a><\/span>
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This gels with other research finding that people interpret messages, whether they be information or misinformation, according to their preexisting beliefs. When we see something we like, we\u2019re more likely to think that it\u2019s true and strengthen our beliefs accordingly. Conversely, when we encounter information that conflicts with our beliefs, we\u2019re more likely to discredit the source<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, there is more to this story. Beyond misinforming people, misinformation has a more insidious and dangerous influence. In the van der Linden study, when people were presented with both the facts and misinformation about climate change, there was no net change in belief. The two conflicting pieces of information canceled each other out.<\/p>\n

Fact and \u201calternative fact\u201d are like matter and antimatter. When they collide, there\u2019s a burst of heat followed by nothing. This reveals the subtle way that misinformation does damage. It doesn\u2019t just misinform. It stops people believing in facts. Or as Garry Kasporov eloquently puts it, misinformation \u201cannihilates truth<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Science\u2019s answer to science denial<\/h2>\n

The assault on science is formidable and, as this research indicates, can be all too effective. Fittingly, science holds the answer to science denial.<\/p>\n

Inoculation theory<\/a> takes the concept of vaccination, where we are exposed to a weak form of a virus in order to build immunity to the real virus, and applies it to knowledge. Half a century of research<\/a> has found that when we are exposed to a \u201cweak form of misinformation,\u201d this helps us build resistance so that we are not influenced by actual misinformation.<\/p>\n

Inoculating text requires two elements. First, it includes an explicit warning about the danger of being misled by misinformation. Second, you need to provide counterarguments explaining the flaws in that misinformation.<\/p>\n

In van der Linden\u2019s inoculation, he pointed out that many of the signatories were fake (for instance, a Spice Girl was falsely listed as a signatory<\/a>), that 31,000 represents a tiny fraction<\/a> (less than 0.3 percent) of all U.S. science graduates since 1970 and that less than 1 percent of the signatories had expertise in climate science.<\/p>\n

In my recently published research<\/a>, I also tested inoculation but with a different approach. While I inoculated participants against the Petition Project, I didn\u2019t mention it at all. Instead, I talked about the misinformation technique of using \u201cfake experts\u201d<\/a> \u2013 people who convey the impression of expertise to the general public but having no actual relevant expertise.<\/p>\n

I found that explaining the misinformation technique completely neutralized the misinformation\u2019s influence, without even mentioning the misinformation specifically. For instance, after I explained how fake experts have been utilized in past misinformation campaigns, participants weren\u2019t swayed when confronted by the fake experts of the Petition Project. Moreover, the misinformation was neutralized across the political spectrum. Whether you\u2019re conservative or liberal, no one wants to be deceived by misleading techniques.<\/p>\n

Putting inoculation into practice<\/h2>\n

Inoculation is a powerful and versatile form of science communication that can be used in a number of ways. My approach has been to mesh together the findings of inoculation with the cognitive psychology of debunking, developing the Fact-Myth-Fallacy framework. <\/p>\n

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