Is the COVID-19 bad news game good news? Testing whether creating and disseminating fake news about vaccines in a computer game reduces people's belief in anti-vaccine arguments
Is the COVID-19 bad news game good news? Testing whether creating and disseminating fake news about vaccines in a computer game reduces people's belief in anti-vaccine arguments
StatusVoR
Alternative title
Authors
Rędzio, Anna Magdalena
Izydorczak, Kamil
Muniak, Paweł
Kulesza, Wojciech
Doliński, Dariusz
Monograph
Monograph (alternative title)
Date
2023-06
Publisher
Journal title
Acta Psychologica
Issue
Volume
236
Pages
Pages
1-13
ISSN
0001-6918
ISSN of series
Access date
2023-05-01
Abstract PL
Abstract EN
Improving vaccination eagerness is crucial, especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and establishing new procedures to achieve that goal is highly important. Previous research (Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019a, 2019b) has indicated that playing the “Bad News” game, in which a player spreads fake news to gain followers, reduces people's belief in fake news. The goal of the present paper was to test an analogous new game called “COVID-19 Bad News (CBN)” to improve one's eagerness to vaccinate against coronavirus. CBN was constructed to examine whether creating and disseminating fake news focused on vaccinations and the COVID-19 pandemic has a similar effect and improves people's attitudes toward vaccination. Two experiments were conducted where participants played CBN or Tetris and afterwards evaluated the credibility of statements about vaccines against COVID-19 and finally filled out a questionnaire concerning their attitudes toward vaccination. The results show that playing CBN does not reduce evaluations of the credibility of all statements that are unfavorable to vaccines (false as well as true). Additionally, it does not enhance readiness to vaccinate. Future research and limitations are discussed.
Abstract other
Keywords PL
Keywords EN
Vaccination eagerness
COVID-19
Inoculation theory
Fake news
Game reducing belief in fake news
Attitudes changing via playing a game
COVID-19
Inoculation theory
Fake news
Game reducing belief in fake news
Attitudes changing via playing a game
Keywords other
Exhibition title
Place of exhibition (institution)
Exhibition curator
Type
License type
Funder
Time range from
Time range to
Contact person name
Related publication
Related publication
Grant/project name
Social and economic development of Poland in the globalizing market
Collections
Views
31Acquisition Date31.08.2025
Downloads
13Acquisition Date31.08.2025
Altmetrics©
Dimensions
Google Scholar
