Reducing susceptibility to misconceptions about mRNA vaccination
Researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center have tested the effectiveness of a ‘mental model’ approach to presenting scientific information, incorporating visual, verbal, or animated models to teach scientific or medical concepts to better identify misconceptions.
2 min. read
Correcting misinformation after it has gone viral is a common way of informing the public that what they’ve encountered may be inaccurate, lack context, be unproven, or be demonstrably false. But repeating a misconception when refuting it carries the risk of spreading it to a larger audience, especially because the people who read a fact-checking report may not be the same ones who were originally exposed to the worrisome information.
To overcome these challenges, researchers at Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) have tested the effectiveness of a “mental model” approach to presenting scientific information. Such an approach entails exposing people to visual, verbal, or animated models to teach them scientific or medical concepts so that they either have the tools in place to identify misconceptions before encountering them or can use the model, once they learn it, to override existing misconceptions.
In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by APPC director Kathleen Hall Jamieson tested two mental model-based interventions to counter unwarranted fears about messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, the life-saving innovation that revolutionized COVID-19 vaccine creation. It is being used to develop vaccines against potentially deadly health risks including melanoma, pancreatic cancer, flu virus, respiratory syncytial virus, bird flu, HIV, dengue virus, and Lyme disease.
“We found that respondents who saw the problematic claims along with the mental models were more likely to answer questions in an evidence-based manner than those seeing the problematic claims alone,” Jamieson says. “These experiments suggest a promising approach for overcoming some of the challenges that face the usual uses of inoculation and fact-checking.”
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