Immunizing the Public Against AI-Generated Disinformation: Testing the Effects of Inoculation Mode and Issue Attitude on Inoculation Likelihood of Political Deepfakes

Abstract

Political deepfakes are considered detrimental to democracy by eroding public trust and distorting communication. Scholars have advocated for inoculation strategies to counter deepfakes, yet they have found that individuals’ partisan attitudes can undermine the effects of inoculation. Guided by inoculation theory and motivated reasoning theory, we conducted a 3 (Inoculation Mode: Passive vs. Active vs. No Inoculation) × 2 (Deepfake Attack: Pro-Attitudinal vs. Counter-Attitudinal) between-subjects experiment. Results show that inoculation increases deepfake awareness, intention to debunk deepfakes, and information-seeking behaviors, while reducing the perceived credibility of deepfake messages. However, exposure to counter-attitudinal deepfakes led to greater agreement with embedded disinformation.

Keywords

deepfakes disinformation inoculation theory motivated reasoning deepfake awareness

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ahmed

(2023). Examining public perception and cognitive biases in the presumed influence of deepfakes threat: Empirical evidence of third person perception from three studies. Asian Journal of Communication, 33(3), 308–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2023.2194886

Appel

Prietzel

(2022). The detection of political deepfakes. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 27(4), zmac008. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmac008

Banas

J. A.

Rains

S. A.

(2010). A meta-analysis of research on inoculation theory. Communication Monographs, 77(3), 281–311. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751003758193

Beckman

L. J.

(2017). Abortion in the United States: The continuing controversy. Feminism and Psychology, 27(1), 101–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353516685345

Bolsen

Druckman

J. N.

Cook

F. L.

(2014). The influence of partisan motivated reasoning on public opinion. Political Behavior, 36, 235–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-013-9238-0

Chen

G. M.

Chen

P. S.

Chang

C. W.

Abedin

(2017). News video quality affects online sites’ credibility. Newspaper Research Journal, 38(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/073953291769608

Chesney

Citron

D. K.

(2019). Deep Fakes: A looming challenge for privacy, democracy, and national security. California Law Review, 107, 1753–1819. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3213954

Clayton

Blair

Busam

J. A.

Forstner

Glance

Green

Kawata

Kovvuri

Martin

Morgan

Sandhu

Sang

Scholz-Bright

Welch

A. T.

Wolff

A. G.

Zhou

Nyhan

(2020). Real solutions for fake news? Measuring the effectiveness of general warnings and fact-check tags in reducing belief in false stories on social media. Political Behavior, 42, 1073–1095. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-019-09533-0

Compton

(2020). Prophylactic versus therapeutic inoculation treatments for resistance to influence. Communication Theory, 30(3), 330–343. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtz004

10.

Compton

Pfau

(2005). Inoculation theory of resistance to influence at maturity: Recent progress in theory development and application and suggestions for future research. Annals of the International Communication Association, 29(1), 97–146. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2005.11679045

11.

Compton

van der Linden

Cook

Basol

(2021). Inoculation theory in the post-truth era: Extant findings and new frontiers for contested science, misinformation, and conspiracy theories. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 15(6), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12602

12.

Crawford

A. M.

Weible

C. M.

(2024). The political polarization over abortion: An analysis of advocacy coalition belief systems. Policy Sciences, 57(3), 599–620. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-024-09544-7

13.

Diakopoulos

Johnson

(2021). Anticipating and addressing the ethical implications of deepfakes in the context of elections. New Media & Society, 23(7), 2072–2098. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820925811

14.

Douglas

B. D.

Ewell

P. J.

Brauer

(2023). Data quality in online human-subjects research: Comparisons between MTurk, Prolific, CloudResearch, Qualtrics, and SONA. PLos One, 18(3), e0279720. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279720

15.

Ecker

U. K.

Lewandowsky

Cook

Schmid

Fazio

L. K.

Brashier

Kendeou

Vraga

E. K.

Amazeen

M. A.

(2022). The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1(1), 13–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-021-00006-y

16.

Fernando

(2024a, March 10). Biden’s big speech showed his uneasy approach to abortion, an issue bound to be key in the campaign. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/abortion-biden-2024-reproductive-rights-harris-494af752992ba88fa6e3d53fbd54f716

17.

Fernando

(2024b, October 17). Trump is consistently inconsistent on abortion and reproductive rights. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/trump-abortion-election-2024-ivf-contraception-d91f0959087e803db390be11eb60975b

18.

Gallup. (2025, March 26). Abortion trends by party identification. Gallup.com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/246278/abortion-trends-party.aspx

19.

Geraee

Kaveh

M. H.

Shojaeizadeh

Tabatabaee

H. R.

(2015). Impact of media literacy education on knowledge and behavioral intention of adolescents in dealing with media messages according to stages of change. Journal of Advances in Medical Education & Professionalism, 3(1), 9–14.

20.

Green

McShane

C. J.

Swinbourne

(2022). Active versus passive: evaluating the effectiveness of inoculation techniques in relation to misinformation about climate change. Australian Journal of Psychology, 74(1), 2113340. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049530.2022.2113340

21.

Hameleers

(2022). Disinformation as a context-bound phenomenon: Toward a conceptual clarification integrating actors, intentions and techniques of creation and dissemination. Communication Theory, 33(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtac021

22.

Hameleers

(2023). The (un) intended consequences of emphasizing the threats of mis-and disinformation. Media and Communication, 11(2), 5–14. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i2.6301

23.

Hameleers

van der Meer

T. G.

Dobber

(2022). You won’t believe what they just said! The effects of political deepfakes embedded as vox populi on social media. Social Media + Society, 8(3), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221116346

24.

Hameleers

van der Meer

Dobber

(2025). How far can political deepfakes credibly deviate from reality? Responses to political deepfakes with varying degrees of deception. International Journal of Communication, 19, 180–198.

25.

Harjani

Basol

M. S.

Roozenbeek

van der Linden

(2023). Gamified inoculation against misinformation in India: A randomized control trial. Journal of Trial & Error, 3(1), 14–56. https://doi.org/10.36850/e12

26.

Hartig

(2022, May 6). Wide partisan gaps in abortion attitudes, but opinions in both parties are complicated. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/06/wide-partisan-gaps-in-abortion-attitudes-but-opinions-in-both-parties-are-complicated/

27.

X. D.

Liu

H. H.

H. Q.

(2023). Game-based inoculation versus graphic-based inoculation to combat misinformation: A randomized controlled trial. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 8(1), 49. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-023-00505-x

28.

Hwang

Ryu

J. Y.

Jeong

S. H.

(2021). Effects of disinformation using deepfake: The protective effect of media literacy education. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 24(3), 188–193. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.0174

29.

Iacobucci

De Cicco

Michetti

Palumbo

Pagliaro

(2021). Deepfakes unmasked: The effects of information priming and bullshit receptivity on deepfake recognition and sharing intention. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 24(3), 194–202. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.0149

30.

Jeong

S. H.

Cho

Hwang

(2012). Media literacy interventions: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Communication, 62(3), 454–472. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01643.x

31.

Kapur

(2023, May 17). Trump says “I was able to kill Roe v. Wade” in Social Media Post. NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-was-able-kill-roe-v-wade-rcna84897

32.

Kunda

(1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480

33.

Lewandowsky

Van Der Linden

(2021). Countering misinformation and fake news through inoculation and prebunking. European Review of Social Psychology, 32(2), 348–384. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2021.1876983

34.

(2020). Toward a research agenda on political misinformation and corrective information. Political Communication, 37(1), 125–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2020.1716499

35.

Wagner

M. W.

(2020). The value of not knowing: Partisan cue-taking and belief updating of the uninformed, the ambiguous, and the misinformed. Journal of Communication, 70(5), 646–669. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqaa022

36.

X. D.

(2023). Psychological inoculation for credibility assessment, sharing intention, and discernment of misinformation: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25, e49255. https://doi.org/10.2196/49255

37.

Yuan

(2024). “I know it’s a deepfake”: The role of AI disclaimers and comprehension in the processing of deepfake parodies. Journal of Communication, 74(5), 359–373.

38.

Ludwig

Sommer

(2024). Mindsets and politically motivated reasoning about fake news. Motivation and Emotion, 48, 249–263. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-024-10067-0

39.

McGuire

W. J.

(1964). Inducing resistance to persuasion: Some contemporary approaches. In Berkowitz

(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 191–229). Academic Press.

40.

McGuire

W. J.

Papageorgis

(1961). The relative efficacy of various types of prior belief-defense in producing immunity against persuasion. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62(2), 327–337. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0042026

41.

Morris

D. S.

Morris

J. S.

Francia

P. L.

(2020). A fake news inoculation? Fact checkers, partisan identification, and the power of misinformation. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 8(5), 986–1005. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2020.1803935

42.

Nyhan

Reifler

(2010). When corrections fail: The persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior, 32(2), 303–330. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2

43.

Pennycook

Bear

Collins

E. T.

Rand

D. G.

(2020). The implied truth effect: Attaching warnings to a subset of fake news headlines increases perceived accuracy of headlines without warnings. Management Science, 66(11), 4944–4957. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2019.3478

44.

Qian

Shen

Zhang

(2023). Fighting cheapfakes: Using a digital media literacy intervention to motivate reverse search of out-of-context visual misinformation. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 28(1), zmac024. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmac024

45.

Rogers

R. W.

Thistlethwaite

D. L.

(1969). An analysis of active and passive defenses in inducing resistance to persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 11(4), 301–308. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0027354

46.

Roozenbeek

van der Linden

(2018). The fake news game: Actively inoculating against the risk of misinformation. Journal of Risk Research, 22(5), 570–580. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2018.1443491

47.

Roozenbeek

van der Linden

(2019). Fake news game confers psychological resistance against online misinformation. Palgrave Communications, 5(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0279-9

48.

Roozenbeek

van der Linden

Goldberg

Rathje

Lewandowsky

(2022). Psychological inoculation improves resilience against misinformation on social media. Science Advances, 8(34), eabo6254. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abo6254

49.

Sanger-Katz

Miller

C. C.

Washington

(2024, October 28). Trump’s changing messages on abortion, in 660 quotes. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/28/upshot/trump-abortion-words.html

50.

Sankaranarayanan

Groh

Picard

Lippman

(2021). The presidential deepfakes dataset. CEUR Workshop Proceedings (Vol. 2942, pp. 57–72). CEUR-WS.

51.

Saleh

N. F.

Roozenbeek

J. O. N.

Makki

F. A.

McClanahan

W. P.

Van Der Linden

(2024). Active inoculation boosts attitudinal resistance against extremist persuasion techniques: A novel approach towards the prevention of violent extremism. Behavioural Public Policy, 8(3), 548–571. https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2020.60

52.

Schmid-Petri

Bürger

(2022). The effect of misinformation and inoculation: Replication of an experiment on the effect of false experts in the context of climate change communication. Public Understanding of Science, 31(2), 152–167. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625211024550

53.

Shahid

Kamath

Sidotam

Jiang

Batino

Vashistha

(2022). “It matches my worldview”: Examining perceptions and attitudes around fake videos. Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–15). New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

54.

Shin

S. Y.

Lee

(2022). The effect of deepfake video on news credibility and corrective influence of cost-based knowledge about deepfakes. Digital Journalism, 10(3), 412–432. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2022.2026797

55.

Stets

J. E.

Leik

R. K.

(1993). Attitudes about abortion and varying attitude structures. Social Science Research, 22(3), 265–282. https://doi.org/10.1006/ssre.1993.1013

56.

(2022). Updating politicized beliefs: How motivated reasoning contributes to polarization. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 96, 101799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2021.101799

57.

Subramanian

Brewster

. (2022, June 24). Biden decries Supreme Court abortion decision as a “tragic error.” Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-24/watch-live-biden-speaks-on-supreme-courts-roe-vs-wade-decision

58.

Sundar

S. S.

(2008). The MAIN model: A heuristic approach to understanding technology effects on credibility. MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative.

59.

Taber

C. S.

Lodge

(2006). Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science, 50(3), 755–769. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00214.x

60.

Traberg

C. S.

Roozenbeek

van der Linden

(2022). Psychological inoculation against misinformation: Current evidence and future directions. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 700(1), 136–151. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716222108793

61.

Trecek-King

Cook

(2024). Combining different inoculation types to increase student engagement and build resilience against science misinformation. Journal of College Science Teaching, 53(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/0047231X.2023.2291968

62.

Tully

Vraga

E. K.

Bode

(2020). Designing and testing news literacy messages for social media. Mass Communication and Society, 23(1), 22–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2019.1604970

63.

Twomey

Ching

Aylett

M. P.

Quayle

Linehan

Murphy

(2023). Do deepfake videos undermine our epistemic trust? A thematic analysis of tweets that discuss deepfakes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. PLoS One, 18(10), e0291668. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291668

64.

Vaccari

Chadwick

(2020). Deepfakes and disinformation: Exploring the impact of synthetic political video on deception, uncertainty, and trust in news. Social Media+ Society, 6(1), 2056305120903408. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120903408

65.

Vegetti

Mancosu

(2020). The impact of political sophistication and motivated reasoning on misinformation. Political Communication, 37(5), 678–695. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2020.1744778

66.

Wang

A. B.

Guild

(2024, April 17). How Biden’s abortion stance has shifted over the years. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/17/biden-abortion-stances/

67.

Wood

M. L.

(2007). Rethinking the inoculation analogy: Effects on subjects with differing preexisting attitudes. Human Communication Research, 33(3), 357–378. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00303.x

68.

Yang

Z. J.

Kahlor

(2013). What, me worry? The role of affect in information seeking and avoidance. Science Communication, 35(2), 189–212. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012441873