When Truth Misleads -- Phase-Aware Coherence Detection for Misinformation Correction Across Epistemic Communities
Heimo M\"uller, Andreas Holzinger

TL;DR
This paper introduces Phase Aware Coherence Detection (PACD), a novel method for misinformation correction that considers audience epistemic orientation, reducing backfire effects compared to traditional fact checking.
Contribution
The study presents PACD, a new epistemology-centric approach to misinformation correction, demonstrating its stability and reduced backfire effects across diverse epistemic clusters.
Findings
Traditional fact checking can cause backfire among skeptics.
PACD reduces backfire and maintains effectiveness across epistemic groups.
Content-centric correction can harm accuracy and confidence.
Abstract
Truth can mislead not because it is false but because delivering it through the wrong channel or authority to an audience with a different epistemic frame can harden misbelief rather than reduce it. Conventional fact checking assumes a shared epistemology that corrections from credible institutional sources will be received constructively across audiences. Evidence suggests instead that effectiveness declines and can reverse into backfire as the distance between source positioning and recipient epistemic orientation grows. We introduce Phase Aware Coherence Detection PACD which operationalises epistemic orientation from pre intervention assessments across institutional trust scientific epistemology conspiracy or anti elite openness and experiential or alternative epistemology. In a study of 45 participants we stratified individuals into three epistemic clusters and randomly assigned…
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Taxonomy
TopicsMisinformation and Its Impacts · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies · Climate Change Communication and Perception
