Corrections for Health Wish Rumors Under Fear Appeals: Evidence from Behavioral and Eye-Tracking Studies

doi:10.12139/j.1672-0628.2025.06.012

Abstract

Abstract:

Health wish rumors mislead individuals by providing false health improvement solutions, inducing unrealistic expectations, and fostering trust in related products. Despite corrective interventions, the continued influence effect (CIE) of such misinformation may persist in the context of fear appeals. To address this issue, this study employed behavioral experiments and eye-tracking techniques to examine the effectiveness of multiple correction methods (efficacy degradation, detailed explanation, and combined correction; Experiment 1) and the eye movement characteristics of efficacy degradation (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 revealed that under fear appeals, health wish rumors exhibit CIE, also increasing the purchase intention for related products. Efficacy degradation, detailed explanation, and combined correction were identified as effective intervention strategies for addressing the CIE of health wish rumors within fear appeal contexts, with no significant differences in effectiveness between efficacy degradation and combined correction. Experiment 2 demonstrated that, compared to simple negation, efficacy degradation enhances the integration of corrective information and reduces cognitive load during the encoding and retrieval stages of corrective information processing. This study provides a theoretical foundation for mitigating the CIE of health wish rumors in fear appeal contexts and offers practical implications for public health rumors debunking.

Key words: health wish rumors, fear appeals, continued influence effect(CIE), corrections, eye-tracking

摘要：

希望类健康错误信息通过提供虚假健康改善方案，诱导个体形成不真实的期待，并对相关产品产生信任。即使通过更正信息进行干预，此类错误信息的持续影响效应(CIE)在恐惧诉求背景下依然可能存在。针对这一问题，本研究通过行为实验和眼动追踪技术，考察多更正方法(效能贬损、详细解释和组合更正)的干预效果(实验1)及效能贬损的眼动特征(实验2)。实验1发现恐惧诉求下希望类健康错误信息存在CIE，恐惧诉求提升对相关产品的购买意愿；效能贬损、详细解释、组合更正是恐惧诉求下希望类健康错误信息的有效干预策略，其中效能贬损在更正效果上与组合更正无显著差异。实验2发现，与简单否定相比，效能贬损可以促进对更正信息的整合、降低更正信息编码及提取阶段的认知负荷。本研究为干预恐惧诉求下希望类健康错误信息CIE提供了理论依据，并为公共健康辟谣工作提供了实践依据。

关键词: 希望类健康错误信息, 恐惧诉求, 持续影响效应(CIE), 更正, 眼动追踪

Xuying WANG, Yang SHAO, Xiaojuan YIN, Xiaokang JIN, Hua JIN. Corrections for Health Wish Rumors Under Fear Appeals: Evidence from Behavioral and Eye-Tracking Studies[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2025, 23(6): 813-821.

王旭瑛, 邵杨, 阴晓娟, 金晓康, 金花. 恐惧诉求下希望类健康错误信息的更正：来自行为和眼动的证据[J]. 心理与行为研究, 2025, 23(6): 813-821.

Figures/Tables 7

References 0

	金花, 贾丽娜, 单金磊. 相关度对老年人错误信息持续影响效应的影响: 死亡态度和健康焦虑的作用. 心理与行为研究, 2021, 19 (3): 389- 395.
	金花, 贾丽娜, 阴晓娟, 严世振, 魏士琳, 陈俊涛. 错误信息持续影响效应的神经基础. 心理学报, 2022, 54 (4): 343- 354.
	刘欣, 吕小康. 健康动机性推理的影响因素及其发生机制. 心理科学进展, 2025, 33 (10): 1805- 1820.
	闫国利, 熊建萍, 臧传丽, 余莉莉, 崔磊, 白学军. 阅读研究中的主要眼动指标评述. 心理科学进展, 2013, 21 (4): 589- 605.
	Baum, J., Frömer, R., & Abdel Rahman, R. Emotional content reduces the cognitive effort invested in processing the credibility of social (mis)information. Emotion, 2024, 24 (6): 1468- 1480. DOI
	Bigsby, E., & Albarracín, D. Self- and response efficacy information in fear appeals: A meta-analysis. Journal of Communication, 2022, 72 (2): 241- 263. DOI
	Borges Do Nascimento, I. J., Beatriz Pizarro, A., Almeida, J., Azzopardi-Muscat, N., André Gonçalves, M., Björklund, M., & Novillo-Ortiz, D. Infodemics and health misinformation: A systematic review of reviews. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2022, 100 (9): 544- 561. DOI
	Buczel, K. A., Szyszka, P. D., Siwiak, A., Szpitalak, M., & Polczyk, R. Vaccination against misinformation: The inoculation technique reduces the continued influence effect. PLoS One, 2022, 17 (4): e0267463. DOI
	Chao, F., Zhou, Q., Zhao, J. A., Xu, Y. N., & Yu, G. Trustworthiness matters: Effect of source credibility on sharing debunking information across different rumour types. Information Processing & Management, 2024, 61 (4): 103747.
	Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., & Tang, D. T. W. Explicit warnings reduce but do not eliminate the continued influence of misinformation. Memory & Cognition, 2010, 38 (8): 1087- 1100.
	Jiang, X. Y., Zhang, N., Sun, X. M., Yang, S. T., Dong, M. X., Yuan, Y. … Zhao, Q. Rumour type matters: The effect of different types of rumours on coping, subjective well-being, and interpersonal trust during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stress and Health, 2023, 39 (5): 1124- 1136. DOI
	Johnson, H. M., & Seifert, C. M. (1994). Sources of the continued influence effect: When misinformation in memory affects later inferences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(6), 1420–1436.
	Kim, S. C., Vraga, E. K., & Cook, J. An eye tracking approach to understanding misinformation and correction strategies on social media: The mediating role of attention and credibility to reduce HPV vaccine misperceptions. Health Communication, 2021, 36 (13): 1687- 1696. DOI
	Lee, Y. I., Mu, D., Hsu, Y. C., Wojdynski, B. W., & Binford, M. Misinformation or hard to tell? An eye-tracking study to investigate the effects of food crisis misinformation on social media engagement. Public Relations Review, 2024, 50 (4): 102483. DOI
	Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H., Seifert, C. M., Schwarz, N., & Cook, J. Misinformation and its correction: Continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2012, 13 (3): 106- 131. DOI
	MacFarlane, D., Hurlstone, M. J., & Ecker, U. K. H. Reducing demand for ineffective health remedies: Overcoming the illusion of causality. Psychology & Health, 2018, 33 (12): 1472- 1489.
	MacFarlane, D., Hurlstone, M. J., & Ecker, U. K. H. Countering demand for ineffective health remedies: Do consumers respond to risks, lack of benefits, or both. Psychology & Health, 2021, 36 (5): 593- 611.
	MacFarlane, D., Tay, L. Q., Hurlstone, M. J., & Ecker, U. K. H. Refuting spurious COVID-19 treatment claims reduces demand and misinformation sharing. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 2021, 10 (2): 248- 258. DOI
	Moravec, P., Minas, R., & Dennis, A. R. (2018). Fake news on social media: People believe what they want to believe when it makes no sense at all. SSRN Electronic Journal. Retrieved July 14, 2024, from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3269541
	Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In R. E. Petty & J. T. Cacioppo (Eds.), Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change (pp. 1–24). New York: Springer.
	Rayner, K. Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 1998, 124 (3): 372- 422. DOI
	Rich, P. R., Donovan, A. M., & Rapp, D. N. Cause typicality and the continued influence effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2023, 29 (2): 221- 238. DOI
	Rose, J. M., Ganbold, O., Rose, A. M., Thibodeau, J. C., & Rotaru, K. Overcoming resistance to belief revision and correction of misinformation beliefs: Psychophysiological and behavioral effects of a counterfactual mindset. Scientific Reports, 2024, 14 (1): 12493. DOI
	Sirois, S., & Brisson, J. Pupillometry. WIREs Cognitive Science, 2014, 5 (6): 679- 692. DOI
	Southwell, B. G., Otero Machuca, J., Cherry, S. T., Burnside, M., & Barrett, N. J. Health misinformation exposure and health disparities: Observations and opportunities. Annual Review of Public Health, 2023, 44, 113- 130. DOI
	Susmann, M. W., & Wegener, D. T. The role of discomfort in the continued influence effect of misinformation. Memory & Cognition, 2022, 50 (2): 435- 448.
	Swire, B., Ecker, U. K. H., & Lewandowsky, S. (2017). The role of familiarity in correcting inaccurate information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43(12), 1948–1961.
	Tao, R., Li, J. N., Shen, L. W., & Yang, S. J. Hope over fear: The interplay between threat information and hope appeal corrections in debunking early COVID-19 misinformation. Social Science & Medicine, 2023, 333, 116132.
	Warren, T., & McConnell, K. Investigating effects of selectional restriction violations and plausibility violation severity on eye-movements in reading. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2007, 14 (4): 770- 775.
	Witte, K. Putting the fear back into fear appeals: The extended parallel process model. Communication Monographs, 1992, 59 (4): 329- 349. DOI
	Yahyaie, L., Ebrahimpour, R., & Koochari, A. Pupil size variations reveal information about hierarchical decision-making processes. Cognitive Computation, 2024, 16 (3): 1049- 1060. DOI

实验条件	推理评分	购买意愿评分
控制条件	2.65(1.07)	2.55(1.04)
简单否定	2.98(1.23)	2.93(1.41)
详细解释	2.51(1.22)	2.49(1.23)
效能贬损	2.55(1.11)	2.36(1.16)
组合更正	2.45(1.08)	2.22(1.01)

实验条件	推理评分	购买意愿评分
控制条件	2.65(1.07)	2.55(1.04)
简单否定	2.98(1.23)	2.93(1.41)
详细解释	2.51(1.22)	2.49(1.23)
效能贬损	2.55(1.11)	2.36(1.16)
组合更正	2.45(1.08)	2.22(1.01)

对比条件	推理评分			购买意愿评分
对比条件	t	p_Bonf	Cohen’s d	t	p_Bonf	Cohen’s d
控制条件 vs. 简单否定	−3.10	0.023	−0.29	−3.64	0.004	−0.32
控制条件 vs. 详细解释	1.23	>0.05	0.12	0.68	>0.05	0.06
控制条件 vs. 效能贬损	1.03	>0.05	0.10	1.91	>0.05	0.17
控制条件 vs. 组合更正	1.88	>0.05	0.18	4.10	<0.001	0.28
简单否定 vs. 详细解释	4.21	<0.001	0.42	3.95	0.001	0.38
简单否定 vs. 效能贬损	3.99	0.001	0.39	5.12	<0.001	0.49
简单否定 vs. 组合更正	5.00	<0.001	0.47	6.30	<0.001	0.60
详细解释 vs. 效能贬损	−0.32	>0.05	−0.03	1.19	>0.05	0.11
详细解释 vs. 组合更正	0.65	>0.05	0.06	3.24	0.015	0.22
效能贬损 vs. 组合更正	1.07	>0.05	0.08	1.52	>0.05	0.12

对比条件	推理评分			购买意愿评分
对比条件	t	p_Bonf	Cohen’s d	t	p_Bonf	Cohen’s d
控制条件 vs. 简单否定	−3.10	0.023	−0.29	−3.64	0.004	−0.32
控制条件 vs. 详细解释	1.23	>0.05	0.12	0.68	>0.05	0.06
控制条件 vs. 效能贬损	1.03	>0.05	0.10	1.91	>0.05	0.17
控制条件 vs. 组合更正	1.88	>0.05	0.18	4.10	<0.001	0.28
简单否定 vs. 详细解释	4.21	<0.001	0.42	3.95	0.001	0.38
简单否定 vs. 效能贬损	3.99	0.001	0.39	5.12	<0.001	0.49
简单否定 vs. 组合更正	5.00	<0.001	0.47	6.30	<0.001	0.60
详细解释 vs. 效能贬损	−0.32	>0.05	−0.03	1.19	>0.05	0.11
详细解释 vs. 组合更正	0.65	>0.05	0.06	3.24	0.015	0.22
效能贬损 vs. 组合更正	1.07	>0.05	0.08	1.52	>0.05	0.12

条件及统计指标	材料组1		材料组2
条件及统计指标	词频(次/百万)	笔画数	词频(次/百万)	笔画数
效能贬损	305.50(167.56)	326.63(20.79)	266.24(156.05)	307.50(26.21)
简单否定	344.43(132.59)	319.25(22.84)	298.75(231.83)	304.75(30.51)
t	0.58	1.12	0.28	0.25
p	0.581	0.298	0.786	0.808