A landmark study tested how people in 16 countries across six continents fall for and resist misinformation.

People who think more analytically are better at identifying misinformation, regardless of culture.

Reminders to think about whether something is true before sharing it reduced the spread of misinformation.

Misinformation spreads across the globe, but most of the evidence on why people believe false claims — and what helps them to identify misinformation — comes from studies conducted in the U.S. and a handful of other Western countries.

A recent study published in Nature Behavior set out to fix that problem. Cornell psychology researchers David Rand and Gordon Pennycook, with 11 colleagues across the globe, ran the same experiment with nearly 35,000 people across 16 countries on six continents. They set out to examine the reasons people believe misinformation — and which tools work best to counter misinformation. The study was named the Behavioral Science & Policy Association's 2026 publication of the year.

Conducted in 2021, the study focused on misinformation about........

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