Porter Ethan, Velez Yamil, Wood Thomas J
School of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052-0086, USA.
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
R Soc Open Sci. 2023 Mar 15;10(3):221097. doi: 10.1098/rsos.221097. eCollection 2023 Mar.
What can be done to reduce misperceptions about COVID-19 vaccines? We present results from experiments conducted simultaneously on YouGov samples in 10 countries ( = 10 600), which reveal that factual corrections consistently reduce false beliefs about vaccines. With results from these 10 countries, we find that exposure to corrections increases belief accuracy by 0.16 on a 4-point scale, while exposure to misinformation decreases belief accuracy by 0.09 on the same scale. We are unable to find evidence that either misinformation or factual corrections affect intent to vaccinate or vaccine attitudes. Our findings on effect duration are less conclusive; when we recontacted participants two weeks later, we observed 39% of the initial accuracy increase, yet this result narrowly misses conventional thresholds of statistical significance ( = 0.06). Taken together, our results illustrate both the possibilities and limitations of factual corrections. Evidence from 10 highly diverse populations shows that exposure to factual information reduces belief in falsehoods about vaccines, but has minimal influence on subsequent behaviours and attitudes.
可以采取哪些措施来减少对新冠疫苗的误解？我们展示了在10个国家（样本量 = 10600）对舆观调查（YouGov）样本同时进行的实验结果，这些结果表明，事实纠正能持续减少对疫苗的错误认知。根据这10个国家的结果，我们发现，接触事实纠正信息会使在4分制量表上的认知准确性提高0.16，而接触错误信息会使在同一量表上的认知准确性降低0.09。我们没有找到证据表明错误信息或事实纠正会影响接种意愿或对疫苗的态度。我们关于效果持续时间的研究结果不太具有决定性；当我们在两周后再次联系参与者时，我们观察到最初的准确性提高中有39%仍然存在，但这一结果勉强未达到传统的统计显著性阈值（p = 0.06）。总体而言，我们的结果说明了事实纠正的可能性和局限性。来自10个高度多样化人群的证据表明，接触事实信息会减少对疫苗错误信息的相信，但对后续行为和态度的影响微乎其微。
