The researchers found significant interactions between vigilance, treatment, and individual characteristics, such as education and looking for COVID-19 information. However, demographics, such as political beliefs, race, and gender did not moderate the relationship between the treatment and sharing vigilance. 

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- Effectiveness of Prompts
- Effectiveness on Relationship Between Perceived Accuracy and Sharing
- Effectiveness in Relation to Demographic Characteristics

COVID-19 Misinformation Prompt Toolkit: Results

Epstein, Z., Berinsky, A. J., Cole, R., Gully, A., Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2021). Developing an accuracy-prompt toolkit to reduce COVID-19 misinformation online. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-71

Developing an accuracy-prompt toolkit to
reduce COVID-19 misinformation online

The Evaluation, Long Evaluation, Importance, Tips, Tips + Norms, and Importance + Norms conditions significantly increased sharing discernment (as compared to the control condition). Participants were, for the most part, less likely to share the headlines overall after the successful treatments rather than choosing to share more accurate headlines. The biggest improvement was generally a result of the Long Evaluation condition.

COVID-19 Misinformation Prompt Toolkit: Effectiveness of Prompts

Post-treatment, participants were less likely to share news that were perceived to be inaccurate, if they had been exposed to a successful treatment (as compared to the control condition). In other words, the successful conditions were able to decrease the difference between perceived accuracy and sharing.

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