Table 1 Description of the various accuracy prompts used across experiments. Example materials can be found on OSF.
Accuracy prompt | Description |
|---|---|
Evaluation | Participants are asked to rate the accuracy of a neutral (non-political, non-COVID-19) headline. In some variants, they are shown ten headlines instead of 1; in other variants, they are given feedback on whether their answer was correct. When subsetting analyses on the Evaluation treatment, we only include studies where a single headline was shown without feedback. |
Importance | Participants are asked how important it is to them to only share accurate news or to not share inaccurate news. |
Norms | Participants are told that most other survey respondents think it is very important to only share accurate news. |
PSA video | Participants are shown a 30 s video (in the format of a “Public Service Announcement”, although these words are not explicitly mentioned) reminding them to think about accuracy before sharing. |
Reason | Participants are asked how important it is to them to only share news that they have thought about in a reasoned, rather than emotional, way. |
Tips | Participants are shown a set of minimal digital literacy tips; for sample tips, see Ref. 25. |
