MISTRUST · Correcting misinformation: The role of source (un)trustworthiness on the effects of repetition and contradiction in judgments of information’s truth-value.
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-12-01 → 2022-11-30
- EU contribution
- €147,815
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Correcting misinformation: The role of source (un)trustworthiness on the effects of repetition and contradiction in judgments of information’s truth-value.
Every day a vast amount of misinformation and Fake News are repeated and infinitely shared, reaching millions of people in a short time. The large-scale dissemination of misinformation is one of the major challenges that current societies face, with long-lasting costs to individuals and governments. European Commission’s efforts in seeking advice from experts regarding measures to counteract disinformation attest to the urgency of addressing this issue. The fact that people tend to believe in information they repeatedly encounter and to reject claims that contradict what they heard before makes misinformation-correction very difficult. Since most correction strategies entail both a repetition of the false claims and their contradiction, they ironically end up strengthening the validity of the misinformation they attempt to correct. It is thus of the utmost importance to examine the mechanisms that may contribute to the development of effective misinformation-correction actions. With this project we want to contribute to that goal, by addressing a novel variable with the potential to influence the effects of repetition and contradiction on perceived information validity – providing information about source (un)trustworthiness. Building on previous research in the field, our hypothesis is that providing information about the untrustworthiness of the source of previous false claims will prompt individuals to scrutinise and analyse information more deeply, counteracting the effects of repetition and contradiction (which rely on superficial information processing). As such, this research program will not only advance the knowledge in its specific field but also inform future policies to deal with the increasing amount of misinformation that is spread to the public.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Every day a vast amount of misinformation and Fake News are repeated and infinitely shared, reaching millions of people in a short time. The large-scale dissemination of misinformation is one of the major challenges that current societies face, with long-lasting costs to individuals and governments. European Commission’s recent efforts in seeking advice from experts regarding measures to counteract disinformation attest to the urgency of addressing this issue. The fact that people tend to believe in information they repeatedly encounter and to reject claims that contradict what they heard before makes misinformation-correction very difficult. Since most correction strategies entail both a repetition of the false claims and their contradiction, they ironically end up strengthening the validity of the misinformation they attempt to correct. It is thus of the utmost importance to examine the mechanisms that may contribute to the development of effective misinformation-correction actions.This proposal contributes to that goal, addressing a novel variable - source (un)trustworthiness - with the potential to influence the effects of repetition and contradiction on perceived information validity. It is hypothesized that providing information about the untrustworthiness of the source of previous false claims will prompt individuals to scrutinize and analyze information more deeply, counteracting the effects of repetition and contradiction (which rely on superficial information processing). This research program will both advance the knowledge in the field and inform future policies to deal with the increasing amount of misinformation that is spread to the public.The researcher conducting the project has the relevant expertise on both the specific field of research and the appropriate experimental methodologies. Additionally, the Host offers a high-quality research and training environment, and the necessary infrastructure for the successful implementation of the project.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa · LisboaCoordinatorPortugal
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union