https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6203-2740
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ABSTRACT
Emotionally evocative narratives are a common strategy to spread vaccine-related misinformation on social media. This study tested the use of two emotional awareness strategies – affect labeling and reflections of feelings – to mitigate the impact of misinformation. The online experiment (N = 143) found that emotional awareness (vs. control) led to greater felt emotions and concerns about HPV vaccine safety among female participants. Felt emotions further mediated the effect of emotional awareness (vs. control) on intentions to share misinformation and concerns about HPV vaccine safety. These findings suggest that emotional awareness may be ineffective at addressing narrative misinformation on social media.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Participants who identified as non-female included 61 individuals who identified as male, two gender nonconforming, one genderqueer, and two who preferred not to report their gender identity.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Zexin Ma
Zexin Ma (Ph.D. University of Maryland) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Connecticut. She conducts research at the intersection of health communication, persuasion, and media psychology. She is particularly interested in understanding the processing and persuasive effects of health narratives.
Yun Lu
Yun Lu (Ph.D. University of Maryland) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at Zhejiang University. Her research explores the impact of multicultural issues on mental health, the psychotherapy process, the measurement of psychological concepts, and therapist training.
Xinyan Zhao
Xinyan Zhao (Ph.D. University of Maryland) is an assistant professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research centers on computational strategic communication, examining how individuals and organizations use social media to consume, share, and network (mis)information in crisis and health contexts.