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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1414864

The Impact of Confirmation Bias Awareness on Mitigating Susceptibility to Misinformation.

Provisionally accepted
Michal Piksa Michal Piksa 1Karolina Noworyta Karolina Noworyta 1Aleksander B. Gundersen Aleksander B. Gundersen 2Jonas Kunst Jonas Kunst 2Mikolaj Morzy Mikolaj Morzy 3Jan Piasecki Jan Piasecki 4Rafal Rygula Rafal Rygula 1*
  • 1 Affective Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Maj Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, malopolskie, Poland
  • 2 University of Oslo, Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  • 3 Poznań University of Technology, Poznań, Greater Poland, Poland
  • 4 Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Lesser Poland, Poland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In the current digital age, the proliferation of misinformation presents a formidable challenge to a democratic society. False narratives surrounding vaccination efforts pose a significant public health risk. Understanding the role of cognitive biases in susceptibility to misinformation is crucial in addressing this challenge. Confirmation bias, characterized by the tendency to favor information that aligns with pre-existing beliefs or attitudes, can exacerbate the spread of false narratives.This study investigates the effect of confirmation bias awareness on susceptibility to general misinformation. For this, a sample of 1479 participants was recruited, ensuring diverse representation across attitudes towards vaccination. Half of the participants received targeted information about confirmation bias, aimed at increasing awareness of this bias and its potential impact on cognitive processing of information. The other half did not receive this information.Results from the study indicated that participants exposed to an intervention aimed at inducing awareness of confirmation bias demonstrated reduced susceptibility to misinformation and increased ability to general discernment of veracity. Notably, these effects were only pronounced among individuals who initially were most negative towards COVID-19 vaccines.These insights provide a foundation for developing targeted strategies to promote informed decision-making and mitigate the spread of misinformation, particularly in the context of public health crises. Further research is warranted to explore the underlying mechanisms driving these effects and to refine intervention approaches for diverse populations and contexts.

    Keywords: fake news, intervention, confirmation bias, attitudes, Vaccines, COVID-19, online research

    Received: 09 Apr 2024; Accepted: 26 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Piksa, Noworyta, Gundersen, Kunst, Morzy, Piasecki and Rygula. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Rafal Rygula, Affective Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Maj Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, 31-343, malopolskie, Poland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.