An Empirical Study of the Effects of a Prebunking of Health Misinformation on In-dividuals'Perceptions and Behavioral Intentions
This study aims to analyze the mechanisms of prebunking's impact on two specific dimensions(i.e.,individual perception and behavioral intention)and compare the efficacy of different prebunking strat-egies.The hypotheses were tested in a double-blind experimental design,wherein 182 participants were randomly assigned to a fact-based inoculation or a logic-based inoculation or a control group.Specifically,we use one-way ANOVA to test the mechanism of the effect of the pre-intervention and use multiple compari-son analysis to test the effect of different interventions.The results indicate that prebunking have a significant impact on individual perceptions and behavioral intentions.In the perception dimension,prebunking substan-tially reduces individuals'perceived threat,perceived consensus,and perceived credibility of health misin-formation.In the behavioral intention dimension,while prebunking effectively reduces individuals'sharing likelihood of health misinformation,it has little impact on their willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19.Furthermore,no significant difference was observed between the group of fact-based and logic-based inocu-lations.This study broadens the application scenarios and mechanisms of prebunking,offering evidence for assessing its feasibility and efficacy in the governance of health misinformation.
Health misinformationPrebunkingInfodemicsIndividual perceptionsBehavioral intentionInoculation theory