- Inattention contributes the most to participants’ sharing intentions – confusion (33.1%), preference (15.8%), inattention (51.1%)
- Preference is actually the smallest factor that affects sharing intentions 

Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online - attention to accuracy study findings

Study 6 - inattention to headline accuracy
- Recruited 710 participants from MTurk
- Full attention treatment participants asked to rate the accuracy of headlines before sharing intentions

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Disconnect between sharing and accuracy (studies 1, 2)
- Priming accuracy improves sharing (studies 3, 4, 5)
- Attention to accuracy as a mechanism (study 6)
- Deploying the intervention on Twitter (study 7)

Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online - study designs

Pennycook, G., Epstein, Z., Mosleh, M., Arechar, A. A., Eckles, D., & Rand, D. G. (2021). Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online. Nature, 592(7855), 590-595. https://psyarxiv.com/3n9u8 

Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online

Studies 3 & 4– accuracy rating and sharing surveys 
- 727 (study 3) and 780 (study 4) participants from MTurk were shown 24 news headlines like in study 1
- Control group participants asked how likely they would share each headline on Facebook
- Treatment group first asked to rate accuracy of headlines before sharing intentions

Study 5 – representative population 
- 1268 participants from Lucid with age, gender, ethnicity, and geographic region that supposedly represented American residents 
- Active control condition asked participants to rate how humorous headlines were instead of accuracy 
- Importance treatment asked participants how important they think sharing just accurate information is in general

Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online - primary accuracy studies

Study 1 – headline accuracy and sharing 
- Showed 1015 participants from Mechanical Turk 36 news stories with corresponding headlines, lede sentences, and pictures from social media
- Half true, half false
- Half in favor of Democrats; half in favor of Republicans
- Participants randomly asked to decipher the accuracy of the news articles (accuracy condition) or whether they would share it or not (sharing condition)

Study 2 – rating importance of accuracy in sharing 
- 401 participants recruited from Lucid
- Asked to rate the importance of accuracy in sharing content on social media compared to other factors

Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online - sharing and accuracy studies

Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online - attention to accuracy study

Study 7 - Twitter DMs asking users to consider headline accuracy
- 5379 Twitter users who have shared links from 2 untrustworthy sites (Breitbart.com and Inforwars.com) were recruited 
- Sent the users messages to rate accuracy of headlines
- Studied users’ sharing behaviors (accuracy and engagement levels) after the private messages using a stepped-wedge/randomized roll-out design 
- Accuracy level calculated by subtracting number of misinformation links from mainstream sources shared daily 
- High-engagement users add to posts rather than simply retweeting (takes more effort to research and write) 

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