Misinformation Interventions Decay Rapidly Without an Immediate Post-Test

Georgia Capewell, Rakoen Maertens, Miriam Remshard, Sander Van Der Linden, Josh Compton, Stephan Lewandowsky, Jon Roozenbeek*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In recent years, many kinds of interventions have been developed that seek to reduce susceptibility to misinformation. In two preregistered longitudinal studies (N1 = 503, N2 = 673), we leverage two previously validated “inoculation” interventions (a video and a game) to address two important questions in misinformation interventions research: 1) whether displaying additional stimuli (such as videos unrelated to misinformation) alongside an intervention interferes with its effectiveness, and 2) whether administering an immediate post-test (in the form of a social media post evaluation task after the intervention) plays a role in the longevity of the intervention. We find no evidence that other stimuli interfere with intervention efficacy, but strong evidence that immediate post-tests strengthen the learnings from the intervention. In Study 1, we find that 48 hours after watching a video, participants who received an immediate post-test continued to be significantly better at discerning untrustworthy social media posts from neutral ones than the control group (d = .416, p = .007), whereas participants who only received a post-test 48 hours later showed no differences with a control (d = .010, p = .854). In Study 2, we observe highly similar results for a gamified intervention, and provide evidence for a causal mechanism: immediate post-tests help strengthen people’s memory of the lessons learned in the intervention. We argue that the active rehearsal and application of relevant information are therefore requirements for the longevity of learning-based misinformation interventions, which has substantial implications for their scalability.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)441-454
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Applied Social Psychology
Volume54
Issue number8
Early online date21 Jun 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Jul 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Applied Social Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Research Groups and Themes

  • TeDCog

Keywords

  • misinformation
  • memory
  • Inoculation
  • longevity
  • testing effects

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