Is 'bypassing' a better way to battle misinformation? Researchers say new approach has advantages over the standard
Rather than directly addressing the misinformation, ‘bypassing’ involves offering accurate information that has an implication opposite to that of the misinformation.
Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
Misinformation can lead to socially detrimental behavior, which makes finding ways to combat its effects a matter of crucial public concern. A new paper by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General explores an innovative approach to countering the impact of factually incorrect information called "bypassing," and finds that it may have advantages over the standard approach of correcting inaccurate statements.
"The gold standard for tackling misinformation is a correction that factually contradicts the misinformation" by directly refuting the claim, write former APPC postdoctoral fellow Javier A. Granados Samayoa, a research associate in the Social Action Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dolores Albarracín, Amy Gutmann Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor and director of APPC's Communication Science division, in the study "Bypassing versus correcting misinformation: Efficacy and fundamental processes." Corrections can work, but countering misinformation this way is an uphill battle: people don't like to be contradicted, and a belief, once accepted, can be difficult to dislodge.
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