Chapter 35 Quiz: Prebunking and Inoculation Theory

Instructions: Answer each question, then click the triangle to reveal the correct answer and explanation.

Question 1. The "continued influence effect" (CIE) refers to:

A) The tendency for corrections to be shared more widely than original misinformation B) The persistence of misinformation's influence on reasoning even after a correction has been issued and understood C) The cumulative strengthening of beliefs through repeated inoculation D) The way false narratives gain influence through algorithmic amplification

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The continued influence effect (CIE) is the finding that misinformation continues to affect people's reasoning and judgments even when they have been told — and explicitly acknowledge — that the information was incorrect. The effect appears because corrections do not overwrite false memories; they create competing memory traces. The original misinformation remains accessible and is used to fill causal gaps in narrative reasoning. This phenomenon was first named by Wilkes and Leatherbarrow (1988) and has been extensively studied by Ecker and colleagues.

Question 2. In McGuire's original inoculation framework, which of the following is the PRIMARY mechanism by which inoculation builds resistance to persuasion?

A) Increasing the emotional salience of the correct belief B) Exposing people to weakened counter-arguments along with their refutations C) Repeating the correct belief until it becomes habitual D) Providing cognitive shortcuts that automatically flag suspicious information

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The primary mechanism in McGuire's framework is refutational preemption: exposing people to weakened versions of the arguments against their beliefs, together with refutations of those arguments. This gives people specific cognitive tools — counter-arguments they have already processed and practiced — that they can deploy when the full-strength attack arrives. Simple repetition of the correct belief (supportive defense) was shown by McGuire to be less effective than refutational defense. The mechanism is explicitly cognitive rather than emotional: the inoculation works by equipping people with arguments, not by making them feel more strongly about their beliefs.

Question 3. The "forewarning" component of inoculation theory serves primarily to:

A) Provide specific arguments that can be used to refute misinformation B) Alert people that a persuasive attack is coming, motivating them to prepare defenses C) Reduce anxiety about encountering false information D) Identify the specific claims in upcoming misinformation

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** Forewarning serves a motivational function: it alerts the recipient that an attempt to persuade or manipulate is forthcoming, which motivates the development and activation of counter-arguments. The forewarning does not need to specify the exact content of the attack; a general warning ("you may encounter misleading information about this topic") is sufficient to activate the relevant defensive processing. Forewarning alone produces weaker effects than refutational preemption, but it significantly enhances the effectiveness of refutational preemption when the two are combined.

Question 4. "Cultural truisms" in McGuire's original research were:

A) Beliefs that were widely recognized as false but culturally persistent B) Widely shared beliefs that had never been challenged and were therefore highly vulnerable to persuasion C) Beliefs that had been reinforced through inoculation and were therefore highly resistant D) Cross-cultural universal values that were shared across all societies

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** McGuire identified "cultural truisms" as beliefs so universally shared that most people had never needed to defend them. The paradox he observed was that precisely because these beliefs had never been challenged, they lacked cognitive defenses — counter-arguments, refutations, practice reasoning in support of the belief. This made them surprisingly vulnerable to sophisticated persuasion. The insight that challenged beliefs may be stronger than unchallenged ones is the foundation of inoculation theory.

Question 5. Logic-based (technique-based) inoculation differs from fact-based inoculation primarily in that logic-based inoculation:

A) Focuses on the emotional rather than cognitive dimensions of persuasion B) Addresses manipulation techniques rather than specific false claims C) Is delivered through games rather than text D) Requires no forewarning component

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The key distinction is that logic-based inoculation targets the underlying rhetorical and psychological techniques that make misinformation compelling, rather than addressing specific false factual claims. This means that protection can generalize to novel variations of misinformation that use the same technique, even if the specific content is different from what was inoculated against. The delivery format (games vs. text) and the presence of forewarning are independent of this distinction — both logic-based and fact-based inoculation can use either format and both include forewarning.

Question 6. The "FLICC" framework, developed by John Cook, categorizes science denial techniques as:

A) False Framing, Logical Inversion, Impossible Claims, Cherry-Picking, and Conspiracy B) Fake Experts, Logical Fallacies, Impossible Expectations, Cherry Picking, and Conspiracy Theories C) Fear Appeals, Loaded Language, Identity Threats, Credibility Attacks, and Conspiracy D) Fabrication, Lies, Innuendo, Cognitive Biases, and Cover-Ups

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** FLICC stands for Fake Experts (promoting opinions from people who appear to have relevant expertise but don't), Logical Fallacies (using formally or informally invalid argumentative moves), Impossible Expectations (demanding standards of proof from mainstream science that aren't applied to alternatives), Cherry Picking (selectively presenting evidence that supports a desired conclusion while ignoring contradictory evidence), and Conspiracy Theories (explaining contrary evidence as the product of coordinated cover-up). The framework was initially developed in the context of climate change denial but has been extended to other domains.

Question 7. The "active inoculation" approach used in games like Bad News is theorized to be more effective than passive reading about manipulation techniques because:

A) Games are more entertaining and therefore reach larger audiences B) Active production of misinformation requires deeper cognitive engagement and promotes better retention C) Games can be updated more quickly when new misinformation techniques emerge D) The competitive elements of games create stronger emotional associations

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The theoretical advantage of active production over passive reading rests on well-established principles of learning science: active engagement requires deeper cognitive processing, which leads to better retention and more robust transfer. When players produce misinformation using specific techniques — even in a clearly labeled game context — they develop experiential understanding of how the techniques work that is more durable than understanding acquired through reading about the techniques. The entertainment value and reach are practical benefits but are not the primary theoretical reason for expecting superior effectiveness.

Question 8. In the randomized controlled trials of the Bad News game, effect sizes for immediate post-treatment outcomes were typically in the range of:

A) d = 0.05 to d = 0.10 (negligible) B) d = 0.25 to d = 0.45 (small to medium) C) d = 0.70 to d = 1.00 (large) D) d = 1.20 to d = 1.50 (very large)

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** Meta-analytic summaries of prebunking game research, including Bad News and its variants, report typical effect sizes in the range of d = 0.25 to d = 0.45 for immediate post-treatment outcomes. These are modest by the standards of psychology research but potentially significant at population scale. The Roozenbeek and van der Linden (2019) foundational Bad News study reported d ≈ 0.38. It is important to note that effect sizes in field experiments tend to be somewhat smaller than in laboratory studies.

Question 9. Research on inoculation decay (longitudinal follow-up studies) has found that:

A) Inoculation effects are permanent and do not decay significantly over time B) Inoculation effects decay rapidly and completely within 48 hours C) Inoculation effects show substantial decay over weeks, typically requiring booster interventions to maintain D) Inoculation effects actually increase over time as the refutations are consolidated in long-term memory

Show Answer **Correct Answer: C** Multiple longitudinal studies (including Maertens et al., 2021) have found that inoculation effects show significant decay over weeks. The typical pattern is a rapid initial decay followed by slower stabilization, with effects substantially reduced by four weeks and approaching baseline by eight weeks. This pattern motivates the concept of "booster shots" — brief re-exposures to inoculation content at intervals — to maintain protection. The optimal frequency and format of booster interventions has not yet been systematically determined.

Question 10. The 2022 Google/Cambridge prebunking campaign delivered inoculation content via:

A) WhatsApp messages to targeted users B) YouTube video advertisements in Central and Eastern Europe C) In-game notifications in popular mobile games D) Facebook News Feed posts

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The 2022 Google/Cambridge collaboration delivered 90-second YouTube video advertisements to audiences in Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The campaign was designed to inoculate against Russian disinformation tactics following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Each ad presented a specific manipulation technique with a brief explanation of how it works and why it is misleading. A pre-registered field experiment embedded in the campaign found significant effects on susceptibility to misinformation using the targeted techniques.

Question 11. A key finding of the Google/Cambridge field experiments that distinguishes them from laboratory studies is:

A) Effects were only found among highly educated participants B) Effects were significant even from a single viewing without interactive elements C) Effects were only found for politically neutral topics D) Effects required prior media literacy training to emerge

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** One particularly important finding from the Google/Cambridge field experiments was that prebunking ads were effective even when viewed only once, without the interactive elements of game-based approaches. This suggests that brief, passive exposure to inoculation content can produce meaningful effects, which is significant for the practical delivery of prebunking at scale. The finding implies that prebunking does not require the full active-learning experience of a game; a well-designed advertisement may be sufficient.

Question 12. The "Go Viral!" game was specifically designed to address misinformation related to:

A) Climate change B) Election integrity C) COVID-19 D) Vaccine safety generally

Show Answer **Correct Answer: C** Go Viral! was developed specifically to address COVID-19 misinformation, targeting three manipulation techniques commonly used in COVID-19 false claims: exploiting emotions, using fake experts, and spreading conspiracy theories. The game was commissioned by the United Nations and the UK Cabinet Office and was rapidly developed and deployed during the early COVID-19 pandemic. It was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial by Basol, Roozenbeek, and van der Linden (2020), which found significant improvements in ability to identify manipulative COVID-19 content.

Question 13. The "illusory truth effect" is most relevant to debunking because it suggests that:

A) Corrections delivered by authoritative sources are automatically trusted B) Repeating a false claim in the course of correcting it can increase its perceived truthfulness C) True information feels more fluent than false information and is therefore easier to process D) Multiple corrections from different sources create confusion rather than clarity

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The illusory truth effect (Hasher, Goldstein, & Toppino, 1977; Pennycook et al., 2018) is the finding that repeated exposure to a claim increases its perceived credibility, regardless of whether the claim is true or false. This is directly relevant to debunking because corrections typically must repeat the false claim before refuting it (e.g., "It is NOT true that vaccines cause autism"). This repetition of the false claim may increase its familiarity, which the cognitive system may interpret as a signal of truth. The effect is particularly concerning for populations with memory vulnerabilities and for corrections delivered long after initial exposure to the false claim.

Question 14. Psychological reactance, as it applies to corrections and prebunking, refers to:

A) The brain's automatic rejection of information that conflicts with sensory experience B) The motivational state arising when perceived freedom of belief is threatened, which can cause people to cling more tightly to a corrected belief C) The physiological stress response triggered by exposure to threatening information D) The tendency to selectively attend to information that confirms prior beliefs

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** Psychological reactance (Brehm, 1966) is the motivational state that arises when people perceive a threat to their freedom of belief or behavior. In the context of corrections, heavy-handed or coercive debunking can activate reactance, causing people to defend the corrected belief more vigorously as an assertion of autonomy. This is one explanation for cases in which corrections appear to make false beliefs stronger. Note that reactance is distinct from confirmation bias (selective attention to confirming information) and from motivated reasoning (better identification of flaws in threatening arguments).

Question 15. Cross-cultural research on the Bad News game (Roozenbeek et al., 2022) found that:

A) Inoculation effects were only found in Western European countries B) Effects were absent in countries with high existing media literacy C) Effects were present across 19 countries but were somewhat smaller in countries with high existing media literacy D) Cultural factors completely determined whether inoculation was effective

Show Answer **Correct Answer: C** Roozenbeek and colleagues (2022) found that Bad News produced significant inoculation effects across all 19 countries in the study, suggesting that the inoculation approach is robust across diverse cultural and political contexts. However, effect sizes were somewhat smaller in countries with high existing media literacy (e.g., Scandinavian countries). This finding is consistent with a "ceiling effect" interpretation: people with already-strong media literacy skills have less room to improve, leading to smaller measured gains. It also suggests that inoculation may be most valuable in contexts where baseline media literacy is low.

Question 16. The "familiarity backfire effect" studied by Skurnik and colleagues (2005) suggested that:

A) Corrections always backfire, making false beliefs stronger B) Warnings about false claims can increase false belief, particularly in populations with memory vulnerabilities C) Familiar sources are more likely to produce corrections that are accepted D) Inoculation works primarily through increasing familiarity with correct information

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** Skurnik and colleagues (2005) found that among older adults, being warned that a claim was false could actually increase the likelihood of later misremembering it as true. The proposed mechanism was that the memory for the source tag ("this is false") decayed faster than the memory for the claim itself, leaving only a familiar-seeming claim that felt true. Note that Wood and Porter (2019) and subsequent research have questioned the robustness and generalizability of backfire effects broadly, but the familiarity mechanism remains a genuine concern for specific populations and correction formats.

Question 17. Which description most accurately characterizes the scalability advantage of logic-based over fact-based inoculation?

A) Logic-based inoculation can be administered more quickly per person B) Protection from logic-based inoculation generalizes to novel misinformation using the same technique C) Logic-based inoculation requires no ongoing maintenance or updating D) Logic-based inoculation works for all people regardless of prior beliefs

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The primary scalability advantage of logic-based inoculation is transfer: protection generalizes to novel variations of misinformation that use the same manipulation technique, even if the specific content is different from what was inoculated against. This means a single inoculation against "emotional manipulation as a technique" can protect against many different specific instances of emotionally manipulative misinformation, without requiring a separate inoculation for each claim. Fact-based inoculation, by contrast, must be tailored to each specific false claim and does not transfer well to new variants.

Question 18. The Bad News game targets which of the following sets of manipulation techniques?

A) Fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking, conspiracy theories B) Impersonation, emotion, polarization, conspiracy, discrediting, and trolling C) Fear appeals, false consensus, selective omission, emotional language, and astroturfing D) Deepfakes, bot networks, echo chambers, filter bubbles, and algorithmic amplification

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The Bad News game covers six manipulation techniques: impersonation (creating the appearance of legitimate expertise or official endorsement), emotion (exploiting emotions to bypass analytical thinking), polarization (amplifying divisions between groups), conspiracy (framing events as products of secret malevolent coordination), discrediting (attacking source credibility rather than arguments), and trolling (using provocative, inflammatory content to generate outrage and engagement). These techniques are presented sequentially, with players learning to use each technique as they progress through the game.

Question 19. Prebunking campaigns face a distinctive challenge with "committed believers" — people deeply invested in specific false claims — because:

A) These populations are impossible to reach through digital media B) They may interpret prebunking itself as evidence of the conspiracy their belief posits C) They typically have higher media literacy and can identify prebunking attempts D) Legal restrictions prevent prebunking campaigns from targeting specific belief communities

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** A significant challenge with committed believers in conspiracy theories or other false narratives is what might be called "meta-conspiracy" interpretation: the prebunking attempt can be incorporated into the conspiracy framework itself. If a person believes that government and media are conspiring to suppress the truth, an officially sponsored prebunking campaign telling them that "conspiracy theories are a manipulation technique" is precisely what such a conspiracy would produce. This creates a logical trap in which the evidence for prebunking (its wide deployment) can be reinterpreted as evidence against it. This is one reason why prebunking appears to work better as prevention than as treatment for committed believers.

Question 20. The Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab's research program has contributed to prebunking through:

A) Primarily clinical trials of pharmaceutical interventions for conspiracy belief B) Development of the fake news game paradigm, field experiments, and cross-national studies of inoculation C) Development of artificial intelligence systems to automatically detect misinformation D) Regulatory advocacy for platform content moderation requirements

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, directed by Sander van der Linden, has made several key contributions to the prebunking research program: development of the "fake news game" paradigm (inviting participants to produce misinformation), field experiments demonstrating that inoculation messages delivered through social media advertising can reduce misinformation susceptibility at scale, research on the mechanisms of inoculation, and cross-national studies examining cultural generalizability. The lab's interdisciplinary approach combines experimental psychology, behavioral economics, political science, and computational social science.

Question 21. "Refutational preemption" is most analogous to which of the following medical procedures?

A) Prescribing antibiotics after a bacterial infection has been diagnosed B) Administering a vaccine that contains weakened or inactivated pathogen material C) Surgically removing infected tissue to prevent spread D) Administering antipyretics to reduce fever symptoms

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** Refutational preemption is the exposure to a weakened form of the counter-argument, accompanied by its refutation. This is directly analogous to vaccination: just as a vaccine introduces weakened or inactivated pathogen material to stimulate immune system development before full exposure, refutational preemption introduces a weakened version of the misleading argument (and its counter-argument) to stimulate the development of cognitive defenses before full-strength misinformation arrives. Options A and D are analogous to debunking (treating after exposure), while option C has no good analogy in the inoculation framework.

Question 22. Based on the research reviewed in this chapter, which of the following conclusions about prebunking is MOST supported by the available evidence?

A) Prebunking is more effective than all other misinformation interventions and should replace debunking entirely B) Prebunking has no meaningful effect on misinformation susceptibility in real-world settings C) Prebunking produces significant but modest and time-limited effects that are promising but require further development for practical deployment D) Prebunking works only for politically conservative populations who are more susceptible to misinformation

Show Answer **Correct Answer: C** The most accurate characterization of the current evidence base is that prebunking produces significant effects in both laboratory and real-world settings, with effect sizes typically in the small-to-medium range (d = 0.20 to 0.45), but that these effects decay substantially over time (longitudinal studies show significant reduction within weeks) and that major questions about scalability, reach to resistant populations, and optimal delivery mechanisms remain unresolved. The evidence does not support abandoning debunking (both approaches serve different functions) or concluding that prebunking is ineffective. The moderation by political ideology is generally small and non-significant in well-designed studies.

Question 23. Which of the following best describes the relationship between inoculation theory and the "Debunking Handbook"?

A) The Debunking Handbook directly replaced inoculation theory as the dominant framework B) The Debunking Handbook focuses on post-hoc correction strategies and helped establish the intellectual context in which prebunking research developed C) The two frameworks are entirely independent with no points of connection D) The Debunking Handbook is a practical guide specifically for inoculation game design

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The Debunking Handbook (Cook & Lewandowsky, 2011; Cook, Lewandowsky, Ecker, et al., 2020) synthesizes research on post-hoc correction of false beliefs and establishes evidence-based guidelines for effective debunking. While focused primarily on debunking rather than prebunking, the Handbook helped establish the intellectual scaffolding — the detailed understanding of why corrections fail and what makes them more or less effective — within which prebunking research has developed. Prebunking can be understood as a response to the limitations of debunking documented in the Handbook, particularly the continued influence effect and the conditions that produce backfire.

Question 24. The research finding that prebunking effects in the Google/Cambridge field experiment were NOT moderated by political ideology is significant because:

A) It proves that prebunking is effective against all forms of political misinformation B) It suggests that prebunking through advertising does not produce the partisan backfire effects that sometimes accompany explicit corrections C) It demonstrates that misinformation susceptibility is equally distributed across political groups D) It indicates that political identity plays no role in how people process information

Show Answer **Correct Answer: B** The absence of moderation by political ideology in the field experiment is significant because one of the major concerns about prebunking — particularly prebunking delivered by politically visible actors like Google — is that it might be perceived as partisan and generate backfire effects among politically conservative participants. The finding that effects did not differ by political ideology suggests that technique-based prebunking delivered through advertising, which focuses on manipulation methods rather than specific political claims, may avoid the partisan dynamics that complicate explicit corrections. This is consistent with the theoretical argument that logic-based inoculation is politically neutral in a way that content-based correction cannot be.

Question 25. "Harmony Square" is a prebunking game that specifically targets:

A) Climate change misinformation B) Anti-vaccine misinformation C) Election integrity misinformation D) Economic misinformation

Show Answer **Correct Answer: C** Harmony Square is a prebunking game developed in the Bad News tradition that specifically targets manipulation techniques used in election integrity misinformation. Like Bad News, it places players in the role of a misinformation producer targeting a fictional town square, using techniques such as polarization, fake experts, and conspiracy framing to undermine democratic processes. The game was developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and represents one of the early governmental adoptions of the prebunking game format.

End of Chapter 35 Quiz