Towards psychological herd immunity: Cross-cultural evidence for two prebunking interventions against COVID-19 misinformation

Misinformation about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a pressing societal challenge. Across two studies, one preregistered (n = 1,771 and n = 1,777), we assess the efficacy of two “prebunking” interventions aimed at improving people’s ability to spot manipulation techniques commonly used in COVID-19 misinformation, across three different cultural contexts (English, French, and German). We find that Go Viral!, a novel 5-minute “prebunking” browser game, (a) increases the perceived manipulativeness of misinformation about COVID-19, (b) improves people’s confidence in their ability to spot misinformation, and (c) reduces self-reported willingness to share misinformation with others. The first two effects remain significant for at least one week after gameplay. We also find that reading real-world infographics from UNESCO improve people’s ability and confidence in spotting COVID-19 misinformation (albeit with a smaller effect size than the game).