When Debunking Scientific Myths Fails (and When It Does Not): The Backfire Effect in the Context of Journalistic Coverage and Immediate Judgments as Prevention Strategy
Open accessAbstract
When reporting scientific information, journalists often present common myths that are refuted with scientific facts. However, correcting misinformation this way is often not only ineffective but can increase the likelihood that people misremember it as true. We test this backfire effect in the context of journalistic coverage and examine how to counteract it. In a web-based experiment, we find evidence for a systematic backfire effect that occurs after a few minutes and strengthens after five days. Results show that forming judgments immediately during reception (in contrast to memory-based) can reduce backfire effects and prevent erroneous memory from affecting participants’ attitudes.
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Repeating myths might contribute to increasing their acceptance due to their perceived familiarity.
“However, repeating myths might contribute to increasing their acceptance due to their perceived familiarity [22, 23, 24].”
From Misinformation lingers in memory: Failure of three pro-vaccination strategies (2017) · cites this paper as [24]
Familiarity is a key determinant of the illusory truth effect; when something seems familiar it is easier to process and one is more inclined to believe it, regardless of whether the statement is factually true or false or was initially rated as credible or questionable.
“Familiarity appears as a key determinant of this effect; indeed, when something seems familiar is easier to process and one is more inclined to believe it [24], regardless of whether the statement is factually true or false [22, 47] or was initially rated as credible or questionable [48].”
From Misinformation lingers in memory: Failure of three pro-vaccination strategies (2017) · cites this paper as [24]
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- Authors
- Peter, C., & Koch, T.
- Affiliations
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Peter, Christina
- Venue
- Science Communication
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2015-10-25
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3-25
- ISSN
- 0164-0259 (ISSN-L)
- 1075-5470
- 1552-8545
- OpenAlex
- W2341285149
- Cited by
- 124
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 14.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Locations
- Science Communication (publishedVersion)
- Open access LMU (Ludwid Maxmilian's Universitat Munchen) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Keywords
- backfire effect, debunking, scientific myths, misinformation, journalistic coverage, memory distortion, attitude change, misinformation correction
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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