Hypothesis
A game-based inoculation intervention, repeatedly effective in Western samples, would help people in north India spot and resist misinformation.
What failed
In a randomised controlled trial in north India (n = 757), the intervention had no significant impact on the perceived reliability of misinformation, confidence judgments, or willingness to share information.
Broken assumption
An inoculation game validated in WEIRD samples transfers to a rural, non-Western media environment.
Why
The authors attribute the failure to the difficulty of complex cultural adaptation and of fieldwork in rural areas, and note that misinformation there spreads largely through encrypted messaging apps.
From the published paper: Harjani et al. Journal of Trial and Error, 2023. ↗CC BY