ArticleNature human behaviour2023
Understanding and combatting misinformation across 16 countries on six continents.
Article in Nature human behaviour, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 41 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 154 citations in OpenAlex.
- Spotting false news and doubting true news: a systematic review and meta-analysis of news judgements.Nature human behaviour · 2025Pooled it
- Effectiveness of an online vaccine misinformation game for Arabic-speaking Australians: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in public health · 2026Trial
- A Health Media Literacy Intervention Increases Skepticism of Both Inaccurate and Accurate Cancer News Among U.S. Adults.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2024Trial
- Toward an integrated and globally equitable understanding of political polarization.Nature communications · 2026Review
- Who Falls for Misinformation and Why?Personality & social psychology bulletin · 2026Article
- Social media users experience more political hostility in less economically equal and less democratic societies.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Beliefs and sharing intentions of human- and AI-generated fake news: Evidence from 27 European countries.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Interpersonal brain synchronization at frontopolar cortices underlies better advice-taking in groups.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
- Cognitive load and individual differences as drivers of health-related misinformation: A signal detection approach.PloS one · 2026Article
- Ad-based social media interventions increase belief accuracy and generate pro-social opinions among non-news readers.PloS one · 2026Article
- Changing beliefs or changing behavior? Understanding the belief-to-behavior process and intervening to curb the impact of misinformation.Journal of consumer psychology : the official journal of the Society for Consumer Psychology · 2026Article
- Perceived Disinformation, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms in the Czech Population: Age-Specific Associations.Depression and anxiety · 2026Article
- Easy-access online social media metrics are associated with misinformation sharing activity.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Divergent patterns of engagement with partisan and low-quality news across seven social media platforms.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Community notes reduce engagement with and diffusion of false information online.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Comparative analysis of public and expert perceptions of electrified vehicles in the European Union.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The effects of social media criticism against public health institutions on trust, emotions, and social media engagement.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Perceived legitimacy of layperson and expert content moderators.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- China's social fake news database release with brain structural, functional, and behavioural measures.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
13 authors at 7 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The spread of misinformation online is a global problem that requires global solutions. To that end, we conducted an experiment in 16 countries across 6 continents (N = 34,286; 676,605 observations) to investigate predictors of susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19, and interventions to combat the spread of this misinformation. In every country, participants with a more analytic cognitive style and stronger accuracy-related motivations were better at discerning truth from falsehood; valuing democracy was also associated with greater truth discernment, whereas endorsement of individual responsibility over government support was negatively associated with truth discernment in most countries. Subtly prompting people to think about accuracy had a generally positive effect on the veracity of news that people were willing to share across countries, as did minimal digital literacy tips. Finally, aggregating the ratings of our non-expert participants was able to differentiate true from false headlines with high accuracy in all countries via the 'wisdom of crowds'. The consistent patterns we observe suggest that the psychological factors underlying the misinformation challenge are similar across different regional settings, and that similar solutions may be broadly effective.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.