Citation

van der Linden S, Roozenbeek J, Maertens R, Basol M, Kácha O, Rathje S, Traberg CS. Span. J. Psychol. 2021; 24: e25.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Complutense University of Madrid, Publisher Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/SJP.2021.23

PMID

unavailable

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.

Language: en

Keywords

debunking; fake news; inoculation; misinformation; prebunking