Fostering critical thinking to combat misinformation

Misinformation is not just about facts—it is also about identity, emotion, and how people relate to each other. In Colombia, political misinformation is used not only to mislead, but to polarise and discredit. While traditional approaches such as fact-checking offer partial solutions, a novel strategy explores the demand side of misinformation. In the context of Colombia’s 2022 presidential election, we tested whether fostering critical thinking through emotionally resonant interventions could reduce susceptibility to false information (List et al. 2024).

A randomised experiment in a polarised setting

In a randomised online experiment with 2,235 Colombian adults, researchers evaluated the impact of two interventions: a short video intervention and a self-awareness exercise based on cognitive traits. The goal was to determine whether these tools could reduce participants’ belief in false news by encouraging reflection on their own biases and interpretations.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups:

• A control group with no intervention.
• A group that completed a behavioural quiz and received personalised feedback about their cognitive traits (e.g. tendency to dehumanise political outgroups or ambiguity aversion).
• A group that viewed a short video portraying real-life interactions across social divides in Colombia.
• A combined group that completed the quiz and watched the video.

All participants were then presented with true and false headlines, including politically charged misinformation, and were asked to assess their reliability. They also evaluated two fake tweets and completed measures related to four psychological traits: trust, perceived discrimination, dehumanisation, and ambiguity aversion.

Short videos foster critical reflection and reduce belief in misinformation

The most effective interventions were the video treatments. Participants who watched a video were 30.3% (a 4 percentage points) less likely to consider fake headlines as reliable compared to the control group. These videos did not explain misinformation explicitly. Instead, they showed real people navigating stereotypes, trust dilemmas, and social barriers, prompting viewers to reflect on their own biases.

In contrast, the self-awareness exercise had no statistically significant effect on participants’ news assessments. Interestingly, combining both the quiz and video treatments did not enhance the impact of the videos.

Figure 1: Perceived reliability in fake headline relative to control group

Figure 2: Perceived reliability in true headlines relative to control group

Reducing dehumanisation and shifting behaviour

The video interventions led to meaningful shifts in how participants viewed political opponents. Treated participants reduced the use of negative descriptors for both left- and right-leaning groups, suggesting a measurable decline in dehumanisation.

Figure 3: Impact on mediators relative to control group

While the video alone did not increase participants’ stated willingness to report fake tweets, the combined treatment group was 15% more likely to say they would report a fake, non-political tweet. This suggests that jointly targeting emotional engagement with personalised feedback may influence the spreading of misinformation.

Figure 4: Likelihood of flagging non-political vs. political tweets

Policy implications: A new lens on misinformation

These findings highlight the importance of addressing the emotional drivers and demand side of misinformation. Traditional media literacy tends to emphasise logic and factual accuracy, but interventions that humanise others and prompt self-reflection may be more effective in polarised contexts.

Two policy lessons emerge:

1. Design for context: Misinformation interventions should reflect local political dynamics, social narratives, and psychological vulnerabilities.
2. Go beyond correcting content: Changing how people relate to others may reduce the emotional triggers that make misinformation persuasive.

Conclusion: Humanising the information space

Reducing misinformation is not only about disseminating facts, it is also about building the capacity for critical empathy. In Colombia, a brief video intervention shifted how people interpreted news and viewed their societal counterparts. By prompting reflection rather than correction, this study points toward a demand side approach to combating misinformation.

References

List, J A, L M Ramirez, J Seither, J Unda, and B H Vallejo (2024), “Critical thinking and misinformation vulnerability: Experimental evidence from Colombia”, PNAS Nexus, 3(10): pgae361.