Debriefing works: Successful retraction of misinformation following a fake news study

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dc.contributor.authorGreene, Ciara M.en
dc.contributor.authorMurphy, Gillianen
dc.contributor.editorDavid Keisukeen
dc.contributor.funderHealth Research Boarden
dc.date.accessioned2023-04-14T09:49:40Z
dc.date.available2023-04-14T09:49:40Z
dc.date.issued2023-01-20en
dc.description.abstractIn recent years there has been an explosion of research on misinformation, often involving experiments where participants are presented with fake news stories and subsequently debriefed. In order to avoid potential harm to participants or society, it is imperative that we establish whether debriefing procedures remove any lasting influence of misinformation. In the current study, we followed up with 1547 participants one week after they had been exposed to fake news stories about COVID-19 and then provided with a detailed debriefing. False memories and beliefs for previously-seen fake stories declined from the original study, suggesting that the debrief was effective. Moreover, the debriefing resulted in reduced false memories and beliefs for novel fake stories, suggesting a broader impact on participants’ willingness to accept misinformation. Small effects of misinformation on planned health behaviours observed in the original study were also eliminated at follow-up. Our findings suggest that when a careful and thorough debriefing procedure is followed, researchers can safely and ethically conduct misinformation research on sensitive topics.en
dc.description.sponsorshipHealth Research Board of Ireland (grant number COV19-2020-030)en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.articleide0280295en
dc.identifier.citationGreene, C.M. and Murphy, G. (2023) ‘Debriefing works: Successful retraction of misinformation following a fake news study’, PLOS ONE, 18(1), e0280295 (19 pp). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280295en
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/journal.pone.0280295en
dc.identifier.endpage19en
dc.identifier.issn1932-6203en
dc.identifier.issued1en
dc.identifier.journaltitlePLOS ONEen
dc.identifier.startpage1en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/14377
dc.identifier.volume18en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherPLOSen
dc.relation.ispartofPLOS ONEen
dc.rights© 2023 Greene, Murphy. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.en
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectFalse memoriesen
dc.subjectCOVID 19en
dc.subjectBehavioral and social aspects of healthen
dc.subjectPandemicsen
dc.subjectVaccinesen
dc.subjectResearch ethicsen
dc.subjectVaccine developmenten
dc.subjectScientific misconducten
dc.titleDebriefing works: Successful retraction of misinformation following a fake news studyen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
dc.typejournal-articleen
oaire.citation.issue1en
oaire.citation.volume18en
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