The public can be "inoculated" against misinformation, including the damaging influence of fake news websites propagating myths about climate change, by "vaccinating" them against this kind of false or misleading information.

A new study compared reactions to a well-known climate change fact with those of a popular misinformation campaign. When presented consecutively, the false material completely cancelled out the accurate statement in people's minds. Opinions ended up back where they started.

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Researchers then added a small dose of misinformation to the climate change fact in a kind of "vaccination." This "vaccination" helped shift and hold opinions closer to the truth despite the follow-up exposure to 'fake news'.

The study on U.S. attitudes found the inoculation technique shifted the climate change opinions of Republicans, Independents and Democrats alike.

Published in the journal Global Challenges, the study was conducted by researchers from the universities of Cambridge in the U.K. and Yale and George Mason in the U.S. It's one of the first on "inoculation theory" to try and replicate a scenario of conflicting information on a highly politicized subject.

"Misinformation can be sticky, spreading and replicating like a virus," said lead author Dr. Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist from the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab.

"We wanted to see if we could find a 'vaccine' by pre-emptively exposing people to a small amount of the type of misinformation they might experience. A warning that helps preserve the facts.

"The idea is to provide a cognitive repertoire that helps build up resistance to misinformation, so the next time people come across it they are less susceptible."

To find the most compelling climate change falsehood currently influencing public opinion, van der Linden and colleagues tested popular statements from the internet on a nationally representative sample of US citizens, with each one rated for familiarity and persuasiveness.

The falsehood: the assertion there isn't a consensus among scientists about humans being the main cause of climate change.

This is the position of the anti-climate change website, Oregon Global Warming Petition Project. This website claims to have a petition signed by "over 31,000 American scientists" stating there is no evidence that human CO2 release causes climate change.

The study also used the accurate statement that "97% of scientists agree on man-made climate change." Prior work by van der Linden has shown this fact about scientific consensus is an effective gateway for public acceptance of climate change.

In a disguised experiment, researchers tested the opposing statements on over 2,000 participants across the U.S. spectrum of age, education, gender and politics using the online platform Amazon Mechanical Turk.

To gauge shifts in opinion, each participant was asked to estimate current levels of scientific agreement on climate change throughout the study.

Those shown only the fact about climate change consensus (in pie chart form) reported a large increase in perceived scientific agreement -- an average of 20 percentage points. Those shown only misinformation (a screenshot of the Oregon petition website) dropped their belief in a scientific consensus by nine percentage points.

Some participants were shown the accurate pie chart followed by the erroneous Oregon petition. The researchers were surprised to find the two neutralized each other (a tiny difference of 0.5 percentage points).

"It's uncomfortable to think that misinformation is so potent in our society," said van der Linden.

"A lot of people's attitudes toward climate change aren't very firm. They are aware there is a debate going on, but aren't necessarily sure what to believe. Conflicting messages can leave them feeling back at square one."

Alongside the consensus fact, two groups in the study were randomly given "vaccines."

A general inoculation consisted of a warning that "some politically-motivated groups use misleading tactics to try and convince the public that there is a lot of disagreement among scientists."

A detailed inoculation debunks the Oregon petition by highlighting some of the signatories are fraudulent. Among the signatories were Charles Darwin and members of the Spice Girls. Less than 1% of signatories have backgrounds in climate science.

The research team point out that tobacco and fossil fuel companies have used psychological inoculation in the past to sow seeds of doubt, and to undermine scientific consensus in the public consciousness.

They say the latest study demonstrates that such techniques can be partially "reversed" to promote scientific consensus, and work in favor of the public good.

"We found that inoculation messages were equally effective in shifting the opinions of Republicans, Independents and Democrats in a direction consistent with the conclusions of climate science," said van der Linden.

"There will always be people completely resistant to change, but we tend to find there is room for most people to change their minds, even just a little."

Tagsmisinformation, fake news, inoculated, vaccine, vaccination, social psychologists, inoculation theory, Dr. Sander van der Linden