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Investigating the role of source and source trust in prebunks and debunks of misinformation in online experiments across four EU countries

Collection: CCBI-DATA-PUBLIC : Behavioural Insights Public Archive: Data and replication packages of the Competence Centre on Behavioural Insights 

Description

Replication package

Contact

Email
JRC-CCBI (at) ec.europa.eu

Contributors

How to cite

Bruns, Hendrik; Dessart, Francois; Krawczyk, Michal; Lewandowsky, Stephan; Pantazi, Myrto; Pennycook, Gordon; Schmid, Philipp; Smillie, Laura (2024): Investigating the role of source and source trust in prebunks and debunks of misinformation in online experiments across four EU countries. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) [Dataset] PID: http://data.europa.eu/89h/0b5de8d6-58bc-4a1f-973a-6d7e73ae5e56

Keywords

debunk misinformation online experiment prebunk

Data access

Investigating the role of source and source trust in prebunks and debunks of misinformation in online experiments across four EU countries
Use conditions
European Commission reuse notice 
Access conditions
No limitations 
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  • Replication package

Publications

Publication 2024
Investigating the role of source and source trust in prebunks and debunks of misinformation in online experiments across four EU countries
BRUNS, H., DESSART, F.J., KRAWCZYK, M.W., LEWANDOWSKY, S., PANTAZI, M., PENNYCOOK, G., SCHMID, P. and SMILLIE, L., Investigating the role of source and source trust in prebunks and debunks of misinformation in online experiments across four EU countries, SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, ISSN 2045-2322 (online), 14 (1), 2024, p. 20723, JRC133599.
  • NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI
10.1038/s41598-024-71599-6
Publication page 
  • Abstract

    Misinformation surrounding crises poses a significant challenge for public institutions. Understanding the relative effectiveness of different types of interventions to counter misinformation, and which segments of the population are most and least receptive to them, is crucial. We conducted a preregistered online experiment involving 5228 participants from Germany, Greece, Ireland, and Poland. Participants were exposed to misinformation on climate change or COVID-19. In addition, they were pre-emptively exposed to a prebunk, warning them of commonly used misleading strategies, before encountering the misinformation, or were exposed to a debunking intervention afterwards. The source of the intervention (i.e. the European Commission) was either revealed or not. The findings show that both interventions change four variables reflecting vulnerability to misinformation in the expected direction in almost all cases, with debunks being slightly more effective than prebunks. Revealing the source of the interventions did not significantly impact their overall effectiveness. One case of undesirable effect heterogeneity was observed: debunks with revealed sources were less effective in decreasing the credibility of misinformation for people with low levels of trust in the European Union (as elicited in a post-experimental questionnaire). While our results mostly suggest that the European Commission, and possibly other public institutions, can confidently debunk and prebunk misinformation regardless of the trust level of the recipients, further evidence on this is needed.

Geographic areas

Germany Greece Ireland Poland

Additional information

Published by
European Commission, Joint Research Centre
Created date
2024-09-19
Modified date
2024-09-25
Issued date
2024-09-05
Data theme(s)
Population and society, Science and technology
Update frequency
unknown
Identifier
http://data.europa.eu/89h/0b5de8d6-58bc-4a1f-973a-6d7e73ae5e56
Popularity