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Depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation
The spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories related to COVID‐19 has represented one of the several undesirable effects of the current pandemic. In understanding why people can be more or less at risk to believe in misinformation, emotional distress and education could play a crucial role. T...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9524309/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36180772 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20640-7 |
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author | Delmastro, Marco Paciello, Marinella |
author_facet | Delmastro, Marco Paciello, Marinella |
author_sort | Delmastro, Marco |
collection | PubMed |
description | The spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories related to COVID‐19 has represented one of the several undesirable effects of the current pandemic. In understanding why people can be more or less at risk to believe in misinformation, emotional distress and education could play a crucial role. The present study aims to analyze the relationship among depressive symptoms, education, and beliefs in misinformation about COVID-19 during the early phase of the pandemic. We do this through a cross-sectional study carried out on a random and representative sample of the Italian population that allows us to go and verify the co-evolution of many factors: i.e., beliefs in misinformation, symptoms of depression, perceptions about COVID-19, ways in which citizens got informed about the pandemic, and sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, education). The results show that the relationship between depression and beliefs in misinformation exists and is more complex than hypothesized because it is mediated by individual perceptions. In particular, the most at-risk people to believe in misinformation show higher bias perceptions, higher depression, and lower education. Practical implications are discussed suggesting a supportive intervention at both individual and social levels. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9524309 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95243092022-10-02 Depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation Delmastro, Marco Paciello, Marinella Sci Rep Article The spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories related to COVID‐19 has represented one of the several undesirable effects of the current pandemic. In understanding why people can be more or less at risk to believe in misinformation, emotional distress and education could play a crucial role. The present study aims to analyze the relationship among depressive symptoms, education, and beliefs in misinformation about COVID-19 during the early phase of the pandemic. We do this through a cross-sectional study carried out on a random and representative sample of the Italian population that allows us to go and verify the co-evolution of many factors: i.e., beliefs in misinformation, symptoms of depression, perceptions about COVID-19, ways in which citizens got informed about the pandemic, and sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, education). The results show that the relationship between depression and beliefs in misinformation exists and is more complex than hypothesized because it is mediated by individual perceptions. In particular, the most at-risk people to believe in misinformation show higher bias perceptions, higher depression, and lower education. Practical implications are discussed suggesting a supportive intervention at both individual and social levels. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-09-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9524309/ /pubmed/36180772 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20640-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Delmastro, Marco Paciello, Marinella Depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation |
title | Depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation |
title_full | Depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation |
title_fullStr | Depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation |
title_full_unstemmed | Depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation |
title_short | Depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation |
title_sort | depression, reduced education, and bias perceptions as risk factors of beliefs in misinformation |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9524309/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36180772 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20640-7 |
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