Emerging threatsPsychological “vaccine” could immunize public against fake news on climate change

Published 3 February 2017

New research finds that misinformation on climate change can psychologically cancel out the influence of accurate statements. However, if legitimate facts are delivered with an “inoculation” – a warning dose of misinformation – some of the positive influence is preserved.

In medicine, vaccinating against a virus involves exposing a body to a weakened version of the threat, enough to build a tolerance.

Social psychologists believe that a similar logic can be applied to help “inoculate” the public against misinformation, including the damaging influence of “fake news” Web sites propagating myths about climate change.

The University of Cambridge says that anew study compared reactions to a well-known climate change fact with those to a popular misinformation campaign. When presented consecutively, the false material completely cancelled out the accurate statement in people’s minds – opinions ended up back where they started.

Researchers then added a small dose of misinformation to delivery of the climate change fact, by briefly introducing people to distortion tactics used by certain groups. This “inoculation” helped shift and hold opinions closer to the truth, despite the follow-up exposure to fake news. 

The study on U.S. attitudes found the inoculation technique shifted the climate change opinions of Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike.

Published in the journal Global Challenges, the study was conducted by researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Yale, and George Mason. It is one of the first on inoculation theory to try and replicate a real world scenario of conflicting information on a highly politicized subject. 

“Misinformation can be sticky, spreading and replicating like a virus,” says lead author Dr. Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist from the University of Cambridge and director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab.

“We wanted to see if we could find a ‘vaccine’ by pre-emptively exposing people to a small amount of the type of misinformation they might experience. A warning that helps preserve the facts.

“The idea is to provide a cognitive repertoire that helps build up resistance to misinformation, so the next time people come across it they are less susceptible.”

Fact vs. falsehood
To find the most compelling climate change falsehood currently influencing public opinion, van der Linden and colleagues tested popular statements from corners of the internet on a nationally representative sample of U.S. citizens, with each one rated for familiarity and persuasiveness.

The winner: the assertion that there is no consensus among scientists, apparently supported by the Oregon Global Warming Petition Project. This Web site claims to hold a petition signed by “over 31,000 American scientists” stating there is no evidence that human CO2 release will cause climate change.