Clinical Research Directory

Participants will complete a five-level interactive game designed to build resistance to nutrition-related misinformation on social media. In each level, participants act as a health-content creator and choose between an original social media post and alternative titles that may use misleading persuasive techniques. The game addresses five techniques: fake authority, impossible expectations, fear appeals, conspiracy framing, and false dichotomies. After each decision, participants receive cognitive feedback explaining how the misleading technique operates, the linguistic cues that may indicate its use, and how to evaluate whether the claim is supported by verifiable evidence.

Participants will complete a five-level interactive game designed to build resistance to nutrition-related misinformation on social media. The game uses the same scenarios and addresses the same five misleading techniques as the cognitive inoculation intervention: fake authority, impossible expectations, fear appeals, conspiracy framing, and false dichotomies. After each decision, participants receive emotional feedback designed to help them recognize and reflect on the emotional cues triggered by manipulative messages, including unwarranted reassurance, desire, anxiety, anger, and pressure to make extreme choices. The feedback explains how these emotional responses may influence judgment of nutrition-related information.

Participants will read eight brief sections of general nutrition health education adapted from the Chinese Dietary Guidelines (2022). This condition provides credible healthy-diet information without instruction about nutrition-related misinformation, persuasive techniques, evidence verification, fact-checking, or emotional manipulation cues. The sections cover dietary variety; energy balance and physical activity; fruit and vegetable intake; animal-source foods; limiting salt, oil, sugar, and alcohol; regular meals and adequate hydration; food selection, label reading, and food hygiene; and sustainable dietary practices.