Just as vaccines can fend off of a virus, we can psychologically strengthen others against misinformation
The holiday season is upon us, but as you’re getting ready for this year’s celebrations you can’t help but notice a sinking feeling in your stomach: you’re going to have to listen to another conspiratorial rant from your cranky uncle at the dinner table. The unwanted gift that likely awaits many of us at home this Christmas – in one form or another – is contagious misinformation.
Although the NHS clearly states that the Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective, a family member may nonetheless share fake news around the dinner table that they cause autoimmune disease, that Bill Gates is using them to implant microchips for global tracking and surveillance, or maybe that the whole vaccine rollout is simply a hoax, given rumours of fake syringes with “disappearing needles”. Perhaps the concerns in question are less conspiratorial in nature but still based on false information, such as the misperception that the vaccines can somehow alter your DNA or actually give you Covid.
Sander van der Linden is professor of social psychology in society at the University of Cambridge and director of the Cambridge social decision-making laboratory
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