- Published
- 23 March 2021
- Journal article
How Shades of Truth and Age Affect Responses to COVID-19 (Mis)Information: Randomized Survey Experiment among WhatsApp Users in UK and Brazil
- Authors
- Source
- Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Abstract
We examined how age and exposure to different types of COVID-19 (mis)information affect misinformation beliefs, perceived credibility of the message and intention-to-share it on WhatsApp. Through two mixed-design online experiments in the UK and Brazil (total N = 1454) we first randomly exposed adult WhatsApp users to full misinformation, partial misinformation, or full truth about the therapeutic powers of garlic to cure COVID-19. We then exposed all participants to corrective information from the World Health Organisation debunking this claim. We found stronger misinformation beliefs among younger adults (18–54) in both the UK and Brazil and possible backfire effects of corrective information among older adults (55+) in the UK. Corrective information from the WHO was effective in enhancing perceived credibility and intention-to-share of accurate information across all groups in both countries. Our findings call for evidence-based infodemic interventions by health agencies, with greater engagement of younger adults in pandemic misinformation management efforts.
Rights
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Cite as
Vijaykumar, S., Jin, Y., Rogerson, D., Lu, X., Sharma, S., Maughan, A., Fadel, B., de Oliveira Costa, M., Pagliari, C. & Morris, D. 2021, 'How Shades of Truth and Age Affect Responses to COVID-19 (Mis)Information: Randomized Survey Experiment among WhatsApp Users in UK and Brazil', Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8, article no: 88. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00752-7