Correcting COVID-19 Misconceptions Requires Caution

Abstract

Individuals generally revise their misconceptions when corrected with carefully designed educational materials. However, early reports suggest that correcting COVID-19 misconceptions may be especially challenging, which may be due to conflicts with individuals’ moral values and emotions. This study explores the mechanisms and boundaries of correction effectiveness. Those highest in moral concerns for group cohesion or for individual freedoms were more likely to affectively or cognitively reject corrective information. Corrections of COVID-19 misconceptions should be carefully framed to connect with the morality of recipients and anticipate their emotional and cognitive reactions.

The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction

“…For example, some individuals deny the existence of climate change or reject vaccinations despite being aware of a scientific consensus to the contrary 21,22 . This rejection of science is not the result of mere ignorance but is driven by factors such as conspiratorial mentality, fears, identity expression and motivated reasoning -reasoning driven more by personal or moral values than objective evidence 19,[23][24][25][26] . Thus, to understand the psychology of misinformation and how it might be countered, it is…”

Nurturing positive social values with the Socially Responsible Behaviour through Embodied Thinking (SORBET) Project

“…Trevors and Duffy [15] have recently underscored the importance of being cognizant of learners’ misconceptions with respect to the design of educational resources in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. An appropriate sense of “what counts as learning” must revolve around students learning to be and to become certain kinds of people: in short, on being ( [16] ) and becoming.…”

It’s Contagious! The Effects of Gamifying Refutation Texts on Emotions and Learning

“…Further, despite in many cases being necessary, several public health responses to the pandemic were still severe disruptions to individuals' economic, social, and personal lives. As a result, multiple stakeholders held conflicting incentives and ideas about the high-stakes issue of the best course of action, which frequently led to angry confrontations between values and politicization (Gadarian et al, 2021;Pew, 2021;Smith et al, 2021;Trevors & Duffy, 2020). Taken together, the infodemic and the strong emotional reactions it elicited presented a historic challenge to public health communication, which provided space for misconceptions to proliferate 1 and necessitated new approaches to public education (Han et al, 2020;Li et al, 2020).…”

“…Affective theory suggests that emotions occur in response to relevant stimuli and have tendencies to motivate subsequent actions (e.g., flight or fight), such as anger in response to perceived violations of moral values and desire for retribution (Haidt, 2003). Indeed, in belief change research, corrective messages perceived to threaten valued beliefs have been found to lead to doubt, anxiety, and anger, which in turn predicted maintaining false beliefs by rejecting corrections (Nauroth et al, 2014(Nauroth et al, , 2015Trevors, 2021;Trevors & Duffy, 2020;Trevors et al, 2016).…”