Dynamic Debunking

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Consider this headline: “'Brain Games’ Recalls Thousands of Defective Word Puzzles That Gave Users Alzheimer’s.” Brain Games apologized for the memory loss caused by the puzzles and recalled 90,000 copies of the book.

This story was featured in The Onion, a digital news satire publication that boasts a readership of 4.3 trillion. In February, 2018, the world’s population was a little over 7.6 billion. Clearly, this is fake news from a company that prides itself on poking fun at politics and the human condition.

The Onion creates fake news to make us laugh (or cry sometimes), but many sources misrepresent facts to disrupt political, economic, or social processes. Once we believe misinformation, it is hard for us to change our minds.

The more we process this information, such as talking about it to friends or thinking about how it affects our lives, the more the ideas become etched into our mental models – representations of the real world in our head. Mental models help us interpret the endless stream of data coming our way, make speedy decisions, and take action. They also contribute to mistakes, especially if the information we add to them is wrong.

Given these neurological glitches, how do we fight fake news? Man-pui Sally Chan, Christopher R. Jones, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, and Dolores Albarracin recently published a review that examined when corrective messages override misinformation. In other words, when does debunking work?

In their statistical analysis of eight research reports, 20 experiments, and 52 statistically independent samples, Chan and her colleagues found that it is tougher to alter people’s thinking after they have mentally manipulated misinformation. Moreover, simply labeling information as incorrect had little effect on belief. At a minimum, participants required the addition of new data to change their views, and even then, misinformation held its sway.

However, the authors found that debunking can be effective and offered some practical advice for success:

1. Don’t repeat the misinformation over the course of debunking it. Presenting fake facts can inadvertently reinforce belief in them.

2. Whenever possible, get the audience to do some mental work. People change their minds – and their mental models – when they generate counterarguments to the misinformation.

Before his death in 2011, author and social critic Christopher Hitchens wrote, “Take the risk of thinking for yourself; much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.” Chan and her colleagues have shown us just how true this is.