Misinformation Publications

For our research on the psychology of fake news and misinformation, please find our publications below grouped by theme:

Reviews of the Literature

• van der Linden, S. (2022). Misinformation: Susceptibility, Spread, and Interventions to Immunize the Public. Nature Medicine 28, 460-467.
• Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2022). How to combat health misinformation: A psychological approach. American Journal of Health Promotion 36(3), 11-17.
• van der Linden, S., Roozenbeek, J., Maertens, R., Basol, M., Kacha, O., Rathje, S., Steenbuch Traberg, C. (2021). How can psychological science help counter the spread of fake news? Spanish Journal of Psychology 24, E25.

Reviews of Inoculation Theory

• Traberg, C.S., Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Psychological inoculation against misinformation: Current evidence and future directions. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 700(1), 136-151.
• Lewandowsky, S., & van der Linden, S. (2021). Countering misinformation and fake news through inoculation and prebunking. European Review of Social Psychology.
• van der Linden, S., Roozenbeek, J., & Compton, J. (2020). Inoculating against fake news about COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2928.
• Compton, J., van der Linden, S., Cook, J., & Basol, M. (2021). Inoculation theory in the post-truth era: Extant findings and new frontiers for contested science, misinformation, and conspiracy theories. Social and Personality Psychology Compass.

Misinformation Susceptibility

• Roozenbeek, J., Maertens, R., Herzog, S. M., Geers, M., Kurvers, R., Sultan, M., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Susceptibility to misinformation is consistent across question framings and response modes and better explained by myside bias and partisanship than analytical thinking. Judgment and Decision Making, 17(3).
• Steenbuch Traberg, C., & van der Linden, S. (2021). Birds of a feather are persuaded together: Perceived source credibility mediates the effect of political bias on misinformation susceptibility. Personality and Individual Differences 185, 111269.
• Roozenbeek, J., Schneider, C., Dryhurst, S., Kerr, J., Freeman, A., Recchia, G., van der Bles, A.M., & van der Linden, S. (2020). Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world. Royal Society Open Science 7(10), 201199.
• Dan, V., Paris, B., Donovan, J., Hameleers, M., Roozenbeek, J., van der Linden, S., & von Sikorski, C. (2021). Visual mis-and disinformation, social media, and democracy. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.

Interventions (Prebunking and Debunking)

• Pilditch, T., Roozenbeek, J., Madsen, J., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Psychological inoculation can reduce susceptibility to misinformation in large rational agent networks. Royal Society Open Science 9, 211953.
• Roozenbeek, J., van der Linden, S., Goldberg, B., Rathje, S., & Lewandowsky, S. (2022). Psychological inoculation improves resilience against misinformation on social media. Science Advances. Doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abo6254
• Harrop, I., Roozenbeek, J., Madsen, J.K., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Inoculation can reduce the perceived reliability of polarizing social media content. International Journal of Communication 16, 1-22.
• Roozenbeek, J., Traberg, C.S., van der Linden, S. (2022). Technique-based inoculation against real-world misinformation. Royal Society Open Science 9, 211719.
• Rathje, S., Roozenbeek, J., Steenbuch Traberg, C., Van Bavel, J., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Meta-analysis reveals that accuracy nudges have little to no effect for US conservatives: Regarding Pennycook et al. (2020). Psychological Science.
• Vivion, M., AMaryline Vivion, Elhadji Anassour Laouan Sidi, Cornelia Betsch, Maude Dionne, Eve Dubé, S. Michelle Driedger, Dominique Gagnon, Janice Graham, Devon Greyson, Denis Hamel, Stephan Lewandowsky, Noni MacDonald, Benjamin Malo, Samantha B. Meyer, Philipp Schmid, Audrey Steenbeek, Sander van der Linden, Pierre Verger, Holly O. Witteman, Mushin Yesilada & Canadian Immunization Research Network (2022). Prebunking messaging to inoculate against COVID-19 vaccine misinformation: an effective strategy for public health. Journal of Communication in Healthcare, 1-11.
• Roozenbeek, J., Freeman, A.F., and van der Linden, S. (2021). How accurate are accuracy nudges? A direct pre-registered replication of Pennycook et al. (2021). Psychological Science 32(7), 1169-1178.
• Basol, M., Roozenbeek, J., Berriche, M., Uenal, F., McClanahan, W.P., & van der Linden, S. (2021). Towards psychological herd immunity: Cross-cultural evidence for two prebunking interventions against COVID-19 misinformation. Big Data & Society 1-18.
• Yousuf, H., van der Linden, S., Bredius, L., van Essen, G.A., Sweep, G., Preminger, Z., van Gorp, E., Scherder, E., Narula, J., & Hofstra, L. (2021). A media intervention applying debunking versus non-debunking content to combat vaccine misinformation in elderly in the Netherlands: A digital randomised trial. The Lancet EClinicalMedicine 35, 100881.
• Saleh, N., Roozenbeek, J., Makki, F., McClanahan, W.P., & van der Linden, S. (2021). Active inoculation boosts attitudinal resistance against extremist persuasion techniques - A novel approach towards the prevention of violent extremism. Behavioural Public Policy, 1-24.
• Maertens, R., Roozenbeek, J., Basol, M., & van der Linden, S. (2020). Long-term effectiveness of inoculation against misinformation: Three longitudinal experiments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 27(1), 1-16.
• Maertens, R., Anseel, F., & van der Linden, S. (2020). Comatting climate change misinformation: Evidence for longevity of inoculation and consensus messaging effects. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 70, 101455.
• Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2020). Breaking Harmony Square: A game that "inoculates" against political misinformation. The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review 1(8).
• Basol, M., Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2020). Good news about Bad News: Gamified inoculation boosts confidence and cognitive immunity against fake news. Journal of Cognition 3(1), 1-9.
• Roozenbeek, J., van der Linden, S., & Nygren, T. (2020). Prebunking interventions based on inoculation theory can reduce susceptibility to misinformation across cultures. Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review 1(2).
• Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2019). Fake news game confers psychological resistance against online misinformation. Nature Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 5, 65.
• Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2018). The Fake News Game: Actively Inoculating Against Misinformation. Journal of Risk Research, 22(5), 570-580.
• van der Linden, S., Leiserowitz, A., Rosenthal, S., & Maibach, E. (2017). Inoculating the Public Against Misinformation about Climate Change. Global Challenges 1(2), 1600008.

Conspiracy Theories

• Biddlestone, M., Azevedo, F., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Climate of conspiracy: Meta-analysis of the consequences of belief in conspiracy theories about climate change. Current Opinion in Psychology.
• Fong, A., Roozenbeek, J., Goldwert, D., Rathje, S., & van der Linden, S. (2021). The language of conspiracy: A psychological analysis of speech used by conspiracy theorists and their followers on Twitter. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 24(4), 606-623.
• van der Linden, S., Panagopoulos, C., Azevedo, F., & Jost, J.T. (2020). The paranoid style in American politics revisited: Evidence of an ideological asymmetry in conspiratorial thinking. Political Psychology.
• van der Linden, S. (2015). The conspiracy-effect: Exposure to conspiracy theories (about global warming) decreases pro-social behavior and science acceptance. Personality and Individual Differences, 87, 171-173.
• ​van der Linden, S. (2013). What a hoax: Why people believe in conspiracy theories. Scientific American Mind, 24(4), 41-43.

Science Denial

• Rutjens, B.T., van der Linden, S., & van der Lee, R. (2021). Science skepticism in times of COVID-19. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 24(2), 276-283.
• Kerr, J., Schneider, C., Recchia, G., Dryhurst, S., Sahlin, U., Dufouil, C., Arwidson, P., Freeman, A., & van der Linden, S. (2021). Correlates of intended COVID-19 vaccine acceptance across time and countries: results from a series of cross-sectional surveys. BMJ Open, e048025.
• Yousuf, H., van der Linden, S., van Essen, T., Gommers, D., Scherder, E., Narula, J., & Hofstra, L. (2021). Dutch perspectives toward governmental trust, vaccination, myths, and knowledge about vaccines and COVID-19. JAMA Network Open, 4(12):e2140529.
• Vraga, E., & van der Linden, S. (2020). Responding to climate science denial. In D.C. Holmes & L.M. Richardson (Eds.), Research Handbook on Communicating Climate Change. Edward Elgar: UK (pp. 79-91).
• van der Linden, S. (2019). Countering science denial. Nature Human Behaviour 3, 389-390.
• van der Linden, S., Leiserowitz, A., & Maibach, E. (2017). Scientific agreement can neutralize the politicization of facts. Nature Human Behaviour 2, 2-3. 

Handbooks

• Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2021). Inoculation theory and misinformation. NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence. ISBN: 978-9934-564-49-9.

• Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook, Ullrich Ecker, Dolores Albarracin, Michelle Amazeen, P. Kendou, D. Lombardi, E. Newman, G. Pennycook, E. Porter, D. Rand, D. Rapp, J. Reifler, J. Roozenbeek, P. Schmid, C. Seifert, G. Sinatra, B. Swire-Thompson, S. van der Linden, E. Vraga, T. Wood, M. Zaragoza (2020). "The Debunking Handbook 2020." https://doi.org/10.17910/b7.1182

Miscelleanous

• Maertens, R., & van der Linden, S. (2021). A Psychological Vaccine Against Fake News. Microbiologist, 22(1), 14-17.
• van der Linden, S., Dixon, G., Clarke, C., & Cook, J. (2021). Inoculating against COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. The Lancet EClinicalMedicine 33, 100772.
• van der Linden, S., Maibach, E., Cook, J., Leiserowitz, A., & Lewandowsky, S. (2017). Inoculating against misinformation. Science 358(6367), 1141-1142.
• Lewandowsky, S., van der Linden, S., & Cook, J. (2018). Can we inoculate against fake news? CREST Security Review 8, p. 10 and ESRC Society Now 33, p.16.