Doctor’s visit, shot, Band-Aid, and a lollipop.

It’s a familiar scene from many a childhood vaccination. But what if inoculations could prevent more than just disease?

Stephan Lewandowsky and Mushin Yesilada (pictured below) investigated just that in a recent experiment published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, a Psychonomic Society journal. In a large online study, the authors tested whether inoculation messages could prevent belief in Islamophobic and radical-Islamist disinformation. In general, psychological inoculation presents people with a weakened version of an argument that can then be refuted and increase people’s later resistance to stronger arguments. Just as some vaccines present the body with a weakened virus to improve the later immune response to real attack, inoculation messages prepare people to be able to resist later disinformation. In the current study, the inoculation message described how politically motivated groups often distort information and explained some of the manipulative techniques they commonly use.

Nearly 600 (591, to be exact) UK residents participated in the experiment and were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Participants either watched the Inoculation video (described below) or the Control video (a video about bitcoin and the origin of money that was of a similar length) and then saw a target video that either presented Islamophobic or radical-Islamist disinformation.

The inoculation video was carefully constructed to identify and provide examples of three rhetorical techniques commonly used in extremist YouTube videos: hasty generalizations, polarization, and invoking emotion. You can view the video below.

[videopress TTcgcwgz]

Hasty generalizations are when one jumps to general conclusions from one or a handful of instances. For example, after noticing that four of your UK friends all prefer Galaxy chocolate over Cadbury, you might make the hasty generalization that Galaxy is the favorite of everyone in the UK.

Polarization involves increasing and amplifying the differences between different groups of people in society. Sports fandoms are a good example of polarization. People identify as a fan of a specific team and often denigrate their rival team’s players and fans. Disinformers do the same by amplifying group differences and encouraging people to view other groups as extremely different and in conflict.

Disinformers also purposefully invoke emotion by creating content that evokes fear, anger, or empathy. This emotional content elicits strong reactions in the viewer and spreads more quickly than non-emotional content.

The key question was whether watching the inoculation video would decrease participants’ agreement with the Islamophobic or radical-Islamist video, along with reducing their likelihood to share the video, their support for the video, and how reliable they thought the video was. As shown below, those predictions held true. Participants who saw the inoculation video indicated that they were less likely to share the video, thought it was less reliable, agreed with it less, and were less supportive. There were no significant differences in participants’ level of anger after watching the video.

Watching just a 5-minute video helped inoculate people against misleading claims and recognize that the radicalizing videos were unreliable sources of information. In addition, the manipulative techniques used in this context (hasty generalizations, polarization, involving emotion) are used to radicalize people across multiple different topics, suggesting that the inoculation video may also protect people against other harmful rhetoric.

Learning to spot manipulative and misleading arguments is a valuable skill that can prevent belief in misinformation. And the current research suggests that short videos can be an effective tool for inoculating people against Islamophobic and radical-Islamist messages. So, whether it’s a vaccine or a video, get yourself inoculated! You might not get a lollipop after watching an inoculation video, but you’re an adult, you can buy your own lollipops now.

Featured Psychonomic Society article

Lewandowsky, S., & Yesilada, M. (2021). Inoculating against the spread of Islamophobic and radical-Islamist disinformation. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 6, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00323-z