Misinformation can have dire consequences for societal challenges such as public health and democratic processes. Psychological inoculation is arguably the most popular intervention against misinformation, in which participants are exposed to a weakened dose of manipulation strategies, for example. Although most inoculation interventions are short and scalable, effect sizes are often small and there is debate about whether inoculation makes people overly skeptical. Our study will explore whether exercises with automated feedback (potentially via LLMs) can strengthen inoculation effects and finetune people’s judgments to achieve sustainable skill improvement. The findings could provide valuable insights into how to foster resilience against misinformation among citizens on a large scale.

Supervisor:
Marvin Fendt
Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany

Marvin Fendt is a PhD candidate at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich in educational psychology. His research focuses on individual-level interventions against misinformation and media education. Beyond his research he likes hiking, singing, story-driven video games, and his Nashi trees.