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How Can Psychological Science Help Counter the Spread of Fake News?

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Abstract

In recent years, interest in the psychology of fake news has rapidly increased. We outline the various interventions within psychological science aimed at countering the spread of fake news and misinformation online, focusing primarily on corrective (debunking) and pre-emptive (prebunking) approaches. We also offer a research agenda of open questions within the field of psychological science that relate to how and why fake news spreads and how best to counter it: the longevity of intervention effectiveness; the role of sources and source credibility; whether the sharing of fake news is best explained by the motivated cognition or the inattention accounts; and the complexities of developing psychometrically validated instruments to measure how interventions affect susceptibility to fake news at the individual level.

Description

Keywords

debunking, fake news, inoculation, misinformation, prebunking, Cognition, Communication, Deception, Humans, Mental Disorders

Journal Title

Span J Psychol

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1138-7416
1988-2904

Volume Title

24

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
ESRC (ES/V011960/1)
Economic and Social Research Council (2268886)