A signal detection theory meta-analysis of psychological inoculation against misinformation
Year: 2025
Type: review
Study designs: Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis
Abstract: The spread of harmful misinformation poses a growing global threat, undermining trust in science, public health, and democracy. Psychological inoculation (i.e. “prebunking”) offers a promising approach to help people distinguish credible from manipulative content. We re-analyzed 33 inoculation experiments (combined N = 37, 025) using Signal Detection Theory within a hierarchical Bayesian framework. Results show that both gamified and video-based interventions consistently improve discrimination between reliable and unreliable news, without increasing response bias—that is, participants did not become more uniformly skeptical or credulous. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of psychological inoculation in enhancing discrimination while avoiding unintended side effects on trust in credible news, offering robust support for its use as a scalable misinformation intervention. • Psychological inoculation or “prebunking” is a popular intervention for countering misinformation. • Past meta-analyses have not sufficiently disentangled discrimination ability from response bias using Signal Detection Theory (SDT). • Here we meta-analyze 33 inoculation experiments (N = 37,075) using a hierarchical Bayesian framework. • We find consistent evidence that inoculation improves discernment between reliable and unreliable news without inducing response bias. • Inoculation interventions can be scaled and implemented without concerns about breeding generalized distrust.
Source: Current Opinion in Psychology
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,260
OpenAlex ID: W4415695881