Information discernment and the psychophysiological effects of misinformation
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-03-2021-0052 |
| Published date | 06 September 2021 |
| Date | 06 September 2021 |
| Pages | 873-898 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information in society,Information literacy,Library & information services |
| Author | Geoff Walton,Matthew Pointon,Jamie Barker,Martin Turner,Andrew Joseph Wilkinson |
Information discernment and the
psychophysiological effects of
misinformation
Geoff Walton
Department of Languages, Information and Communications,
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Matthew Pointon
Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Jamie Barker
Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
Martin Turner
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK, and
Andrew Joseph Wilkinson
Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to determine to whatextent a person’s psychophysiological well-
being is affected by misinformation and whethertheir level of information discernment has any positive or
negativeeffect on the outcome.
Design/methodology/approach –Participants (n= 48) were randomlyand blindly allocated to one of
two groups: control group participants were told a person they were working with was a student;
experimental group participants were additionally led to believe that this other participant had extreme
religious views.This was both stigmatising and misinforming,as this other person was an actor. Participants
completed a pre-screening booklet and a series of tasks. Participants’cardiovascular responses were
measuredduring the procedure.
Findings –Participantswith high levels of information discernment,i.e. those who are curious, use multiple
sources to verify information, are scepticalabout search engine information, are cognisant of the importance
of authority and are awarethat knowledge changes and is contradictory at times exhibitedan adaptive stress
response, i.e. healthypsychophysiological outcomes and respondedwith positive emotions before and after a
stressfultask.
Social implications –The findings indicate the potential harmfuleffects of misinformation and discuss
how informationliteracy or Metaliteracy interventionsmay address this issue.
Originality/value –The first study to combine the hitherto unrelated theoretical areas of information
discernment (a sub-set of information literacy), affective states (positive affect negative affect survey) and
stress (challengeand threat cardiovascular measures).
Keywords Information literacy, Information discernment, Information behaviour, Psychology,
Cognition, Psychophysiology, PANAS, Stigmatization, Affective state, Metaliteracy
Paper type Research paper
The authors would like to thank the CILIP Information Literacy Group for kindly supporting this
project with a Research Bursary.
Information
discernment
873
Received24 March 2021
Revised24 July 2021
Accepted2 August 2021
GlobalKnowledge, Memory and
Communication
Vol.71 No. 8/9, 2022
pp. 873-898
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2514-9342
DOI 10.1108/GKMC-03-2021-0052
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2514-9342.htm
Introduction
Information that is incorrect and circulated accidently or to deliberately mislead for
whatever reason has become a global problem brought into sharp relief by the pandemic
(Spring, 2020a). One specific example beingthe “Infodemic”(Zaracostas, 2020). It has many
names such as, misinformation, disinformation, fake news, post-truth and alternative facts.
For this article, the term misinformation is preferred as the umbrella label for this range of
false information-relatedconcepts. Misinformation is mentioned in common parlance as if it
were an entirely new phenomenon, possibly becauseaccording to Freelon and Wells (2020)
“fake news”as a term was first coined in 2016. However,the problem of misinformation is a
long and recurrent theme in history (Freedland, 2017;Piccolo et al.,2019). The fictitious
work The Jewish peril: the protocols of thelearned elders of Zion (Nilus, 1905) and its use by
the German Nazis to “prove”a global conspiracy (Bytwerk, 2015) demonstrate that “fake
news”is nothing new. What is new however is the shear amount of misinformation
circulating and the velocity at which it travels through the digital sphere (Vosoughi et al.,
2018).
This article examines the misinformation phenomenon, discusses how ideas in
information literacy and newer, closely related areas such as Metaliteracy and information
discernment are positioned to addressthis issue. The literature review concludes that there
is a knowledge gap in the understanding of the underlying physiologicalprocesses relating
to stress responses accompanying the psychological, social, behavioural and information
source processes in information discernment. By exploring these phenomena, it is argued
that people exhibit either highor low levels of information discernment,and that these levels
will have a bearing on their physiological response. By addressing this knowledge gap, a
more comprehensive understanding of what is involved both psychologically and
physiologicallyin the process of making judgements about information maybe achieved.
To explore the relationshipbetween levels of information discernment and physiological
processes more fullythe following hypothesis is suggested:
H1. Those who score highly in the information discernment questionnaire (IDQ) report
significant differences in the ways that they respond to questions about
confirmation bias, epistemic beliefs, motivated reasoning and how they evaluate
information to thosewith low levels of information discernment.
H2. When participants encounter misinformation, those who report high levels of
information discernmentwill exhibit a challenge state (positive stressresponse) and
positive emotional and cardiovascular responses. Conversely, those who report low
levels of information discernment will experience a threat state (negative stress
response) and a negative emotionaland cardiovascular responses.
Misinformation, disinformation and related phenomena
There is a rich literature on the topic of misinformation. This discussion draws upon the
growing number of meta-analyses,reports and papers which discuss the main issues in this
field.
Before misinformation itself is considered, it is necessary to clearly articulate what is
meant by “information”. The notion inspired by Bateson (1972) in Case and Given (2016,
p. 56) is preferred stating that information is “any difference which makes a difference to a
conscious, human mind”and qualified with “a difference which makes a difference is an
idea. It is a ‘bit’, a unit of information”(Bateson, 1972, p. 276). Informationthen can be in any
GKMC
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