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How to think about whether misinformation interventions work

Nature Human Behaviour volume 7, pages 1231–1233 (2023)Cite this article

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Progress in the burgeoning field of misinformation research requires some degree of consensus about what constitutes an effective intervention to combat misinformation. We differentiate between research designs that are used to evaluate interventions and recommend one that measures how well people discern between true and false content.

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Fig. 1: Using discernment versus ratings of only false content to determine the efficacy of misinformation interventions.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation (NSF Award 2047152). The funder had no role in the decision to publish or the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Brian Guay & Adam J. Berinsky

  2. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Brian Guay & David Rand

  3. Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Gordon Pennycook

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  1. Brian Guay
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  2. Adam J. Berinsky
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  3. Gordon Pennycook
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  4. David Rand
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Correspondence to Brian Guay.

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Nature Human Behaviour thanks Sacha Altay and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Guay, B., Berinsky, A.J., Pennycook, G. et al. How to think about whether misinformation interventions work. Nat Hum Behav 7, 1231–1233 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01667-w

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