Misinformation on social media poses a serious threat to democracy, sociopolitical stability, and mental health. Thus, it is crucial to investigate the nature of cognitive mechanisms and personality traits that contribute to the assessment of news items' veracity, failures in the discernment of their truthfulness, and behavioral engagement with the news, especially if one wants to devise any intervention to stop the spread of misinformation in social media. The current research aimed to develop and test a 4-fold taxonomy classifying people into four distinct phenotypes of susceptibility to (mis)information. In doing so, it aimed to establish differences in cognitive and psychological profiles between these phenotypes. The investigated cognitive processes included sensitivity to feedback, belief updating, and cognitive judgment bias. Psychological traits of interest included the Big Five model, grandiose narcissism, anxiety, and dispositional optimism. The participants completed online surveys that consisted of a new scale designed to classify people into one of four phenotypes of susceptibility to (mis)information, advanced cognitive tests, and reliable psychological instruments. The four identified phenotypes, Doubters, Knowers, Duffers, and Consumers, showed that believing in misinformation does not imply denying the truth. In contrast, the numerically largest phenotypes encompassed individuals who were either susceptible (Consumers) or resistant (Doubters), in terms of veracity judgment and behavioral engagement, to any news, regardless of its truthfulness. Significantly less frequent were the phenotypes characterized by excellent and poor discernment of the news' truthfulness (the Knowers and the Duffers, respectively). The phenotypes significantly differed in sensitivity to positive and negative feedback, cognitive judgment bias, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability, grandiose narcissism, anxiety, and dispositional optimism. The obtained results constitute a basis for a new and holistic approach in understanding susceptibility to (mis)information as a psycho-cognitive phenotype.

IntroductionThe rise of social media users and the explosive growth in misinformation shared across social media platforms have become a serious threat to democratic discourse and public health. The mentioned implications have increased the demand for misinformation detection and intervention. To contribute to this challenge, we are presenting a systematic scoping review of psychological interventions countering misinformation in social media. The review was conducted to (i) identify and map evidence on psychological interventions countering misinformation, (ii) compare the viability of the interventions on social media, and (iii) provide guidelines for the development of effective interventions.MethodsA systematic search in three bibliographic databases (PubMed, Embase, and Scopus) and additional searches in Google Scholar and reference lists were conducted.Results3,561 records were identified, 75 of which met the eligibility criteria for the inclusion in the final review. The psychological interventions identified during the review can be classified into three categories distinguished by Kozyreva et al.: Boosting, Technocognition, and Nudging, and then into 15 types within these. Most of the studied interventions were not implemented and tested in a real social media environment but under strictly controlled settings or online crowdsourcing platforms. The presented feasibility assessment of implementation insights expressed qualitatively and with numerical scoring could guide the development of future interventions that can be successfully implemented on social media platforms.DiscussionThe review provides the basis for further research on psychological interventions counteracting misinformation. Future research on interventions should aim to combine effective Technocognition and Nudging in the user experience of online services.Systematic review registration[https://figshare.com/], identifier [https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14649432.v2].