Date of Graduation

8-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Psychological Science

Advisor/Mentor

Levine, William H.

Committee Member

Lampinen, James M.

Second Committee Member

Zabelina, Darya L.

Keywords

Affirmation; Memory; Misinformation; Negation

Abstract

The current study investigated the effectiveness of different correction strategies for misinformation using a 2 (Source: no source, credible source) x 2 (Structure: negation, affirmation) within-subjects design with an additional control condition that had no corrections. Participants read 40 Twitter-like statements, which included 25 pieces of misinformation and 15 truthful statements, and rated their emotional responses on a Likert scale. After completing a distractor task, participants read additional Twitter-like statements across five different conditions. The first four conditions aimed to correct misinformation: negation with a credible source, negation without source, affirmation with a credible source, affirmation without source. The fifth condition, a hidden control, provided no correction. Following this, participants were given a general knowledge test covering the 40 pieces of information they had encountered during the experiment. In this test, they were asked to determine whether each statement was true or false. Additionally, after providing their answers, participants rated their confidence in their response. The results revealed that negations were more effective than affirmations in correcting misinformation. Both correction strategies (negations and affirmations) outperformed a control condition with no correction. Interestingly, the credibility of the source did not significantly impact the effectiveness of the corrections. These findings might suggest that negations are a more powerful tool than affirmations for misinformation correction, regardless of source credibility.

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