Disentangling Item and Testing Effects in Inoculation Research on Online Misinformation: Solomon Revisited.

ABSTRACT: Online misinformation is a pervasive global problem. In response, psychologists have recently explored the theory of psychological inoculation: If people are preemptively exposed to a weakened version of a misinformation technique, they can build up cognitive resistance. This study addresses two unanswered methodological questions about a widely adopted online "fake news" inoculation game, Bad News. First, research in this area has often looked at pre- and post-intervention difference scores for the same items, which may imply that any observed effects are specific to the survey items themselves (item effects). Second, it is possible that using a pretest influences the outcome variable of interest, or that the pretest may interact with the intervention (testing effects). We investig

SUBMITTER: Roozenbeek J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10621688 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature