Inoculation protects even climate sceptics from believing new misinformation.

Evidence

Contrary to McGuire’s initial reservations, what’s remarkable is that we also found the same patterns replicated in each condition regardless of what people’s previous attitudes were: their attitudes were (partially) protected from the misinformation. In other words, we were not just preaching to the converted by bolstering the attitudes of those who already had favourable or ‘healthy’ views towards climate change. We were also able to immunize the neutral and negative attitude groups. It is likely that the immunization acted as more of a prophylactic for the positive attitude group and became increasingly therapeutic for the undecided and sceptic groups. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 683

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: ‘why the vaccine works on people already infected’ — the strongest counter to critics who dismiss prebunking as preaching to the converted.
• XREF: connects to: Pre-exposing people to weakened persuasive attacks cultivates mental resistance against later misinformation. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 633