Discomfort explains the link between climate change attitudes and subsequent misinformation endorsement

The Continued Influence Effect (CIE) describes the phenomenon whereby people continue to believe misinformation even after it has been corrected. Discomfort might explain the link between prior attitudes and the subsequent endorsement of misinformation post-retraction. We tested the link between prior climate change denial attitudes, discomfort, and misinformation endorsement. We also experimentally introduced a second source of discomfort to explore whether this would weaken the relationship between prior attitudes and subsequent misinformation endorsement post-correction. Participants (N = 787) from the UK completed our study online. All participants completed a measure of climate change attitudes, then read a scenario in which climate change relevant misinformation was presented and then later corrected. Participants were randomly allocated to an experimental condition where they experienced a second source of discomfort (N = 251), or a control condition where no such source was included. Participants then rated their discomfort after the misinformation was corrected, and their endorsement of the original misinformation. Consistent with our expectations, prior climate change denial attitudes predicted endorsement of post-correction misinformation in the control group only, however the difference in direct effects was not significant (p = .301). The implications of these findings will be discussed.