Decoding Deception: The Psychology of Combating Misinformation

The world is in a battle for truth. A cadre of researchers is eagerly seeking ways to stymie the spread of mis- and disinformation. The stakes are high.

Social media have become an accelerant for the spread of misinformation about everything from climate change to public health to politics. The rise of generative AI is making the problem even more intractable. Left unchecked, misinformation will do real damage to people and institutions. But now, interdisciplinary researchers are coming together to pinpoint the nature of this infodemic and seek solutions. Surefire remedies remain elusive, but their insights could be crucial. The stakes are high: Nothing less than shared sense of truth.

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Research Papers Mentioned in the Film:

J.B. Bak-Coleman et al. Combining interventions to reduce the spread of viral misinformation, Nat Hum Behav, 6, 1372-1380 (2022). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01388-6

G. Ceylan et al. Sharing of misinformation is habitual, not just lazy or biased, PNAS, 120, 1-8 (2023). https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2216614120

J. Roozenbeek et al. Psychological inoculation improves resilience against misinformation on social media, Sci. Adv. 8, 1-11 (2022). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo6254

Additional Resources:

• Nobel Prize Summit: Truth, Trust and Hope, 2023
• Cambridge Disinformation Summit, 2023
• “Calling BS” course
• Bad News game
• Cranky Uncle game
• Inoculation Science project by Sander van der Linden’s group
• Google’s Prebunking Initiative for European Union elections