Browsing by Subject "väärät uskomukset"

Extensive amount of health information is available to people especially online, and most Finns have searched the internet for health-related guidance. However, some of the information is erroneous. At individual level, relying on false health assumptions can result in weakened health, whereas at societal level it can lead to, for instance, increased costs. Nevertheless, correcting misinformation can be challenging. The impact of prior information on people’s attitudes and decision making after receiving and accepting new, corrective information is called the continued influence effect. The continued influence effect has been studied quite much but less attention has been paid to its diverse examination from the perspective of health. The objective of this literature review is to clarify the general psychological factors that affect the challenges in correcting health-related misinformation. Studies showed that ensuring the cohesion of the general view about the topic was more effective in correcting false information than merely providing accurate facts. The corrections were the most influential when they included a sufficient explanation for the incorrectness of the original information. In addition, it was noticed that people might have evaluated wrong both the reliability of their memory and the probability of the risks of health disadvantages. People were also more favourable towards health-related knowledge that was in line with their previous expectations. Social consensus was sometimes used as a heuristic in evaluating claims, but yet the familiarity of the claim could create a false illusion of consensus. Moreover, it was noticed that the faster the correction of misinformation happened in media, the more efficient the correction was. Thus, it seems that when it comes to correcting false health information, it is important to tell why misinformation occurred in the first place and also ensure that the corrective information is sufficiently explained and is compatible with other related concepts. Taken into account the expectations and assumptions that are related to health, corrective information should be constructed with the target audience in mind in order to be effective. In addition, it is more difficult to change long-standing false beliefs compared to more recent ones. Therefore, reacting fast is required from media and the establishment when misinformation spreads. This review provides a comprehensive summary about the general psychological challenges in correcting misinformation from the perspective of health-related topics. However, due to the limited themes of the research literature, the conclusions remain partially uncertain. In order to get more knowledge about the continued influence effect precisely in health issues, it would be important to broaden the research topics even more in the future.