The Psychology of Misinformation and Psychological Inoculation

Speaker: Sander van der Linden Affiliation: University of Cambridge Video: YouTube

TL;DR

Sander van der Linden surveys the psychology of misinformation susceptibility and defends the approach of psychological inoculation (pre-bunking) over fact-checking (debunking). He introduces the MIST (Misinformation Susceptibility Test), a psychometrically validated instrument for measuring individual variation in susceptibility to misleading claims, and describes the "Bad News" game as a practical inoculation intervention that teaches users to recognize propaganda techniques through role-playing as a disinformation agent.

Key themes

• Misinformation vs. misleading information. Following an APA consensus report, the speaker defines misinformation as information that is either demonstrably false or otherwise misleading, regardless of intent. This broader definition captures hyperpartisan, conspiratorial, polarizing, and low-credibility content that may not be factually false but leads people to misunderstand the world.
• Limitations of debunking. Meta-analytic evidence shows fact-checking and debunking reduce but do not eliminate false beliefs (the "continued influence effect"). Neurologically, debunking requires people to suppress false information through active negation, which is cognitively effortful and often fails. Repeating a myth while labeling it false can paradoxically reinforce the false claim in memory.
• Psychological inoculation. Drawing an analogy to vaccination, inoculation exposes people to weakened doses of misinformation or the techniques used to produce it, allowing them to build cognitive "antibodies." Unlike debunking, which is always reactive, inoculation prevents encoding of misinformation in the first place.
• MIST (Misinformation Susceptibility Test). A psychometrically validated, AI-generated headline-rating task (validated in the US and UK; recently extended to Sweden). The test measures latent variation in susceptibility: ~40% of the US population endorses false vaccine claims; younger people and ideological extremes score worse; news consumption patterns (Snapchat, Truth Social vs. NPR, AP) correlate strongly with susceptibility.
• Bad News game. A simulated social-media environment where players role-play as an online disinformation agent, gaining followers while maintaining credibility. By stepping into the shoes of a manipulator and deconstructing propaganda techniques across multiple conspiracy theories, players internalize the "DNA" of misinformation (the common templates and techniques) rather than just pre-bunking a specific claim. Early evidence suggests this transfers to resistance against novel conspiracy theories.

Connections

• Related to Conspiracy theories via shared interest in cognitive templates and common patterns across conspiracy narratives.
• Foundational for Misinformation Susceptibility research and measurement.
• Complements Fact-checking and corrections literature by providing a preventive alternative to reactive debunking.
• Applies Inoculation and prebunking theory from social psychology to build cognitive resistance.

Notes

A comprehensive talk delivered by one of the leading figures in the experimental psychology of misinformation. The speaker's emphasis on the distinction between false information and misleading information is important for the field; much policy and research conflates them. The psychological inoculation framework represents a shift from reactive (debunking) to proactive (pre-bunking) approaches, with implications for digital literacy and platform design. The Bad News game is a practical, gamified instantiation of this theory and has been deployed in several countries with positive results. The newly validated Swedish MIST extends the measurement approach cross-culturally.