An accuracy self-nudge to reduce misinformation sharing online.

Self-nudging interventions enable people to redesign their own environment to encourage choices that are in line with their goals and preferences.To date, experimental research on self-nudging interventions to confront online challenges such as misinformation is scarce.In this preregistered experimental study (N = 965), which combines random assignment and self-selection, participants in a self-nudge condition were informed about a nudge to reduce misinformation sharing and actively decided for or against its implementation during the study; participants in the nudge condition received the nudge without such information nor the option to choose.We found that the self-nudge produced greater improvements in discernment among those who chose to adopt it than the average improvement observed in the nudging condition.However, when pooling discernment performance across adopters and nonadopters, the self-nudging intervention yielded similar effects to the nudging intervention.Beside developing an experimental methodology to test self-nudging in a controlled setting, this study provides evidence for the potential of self-nudging to avoid paternalism in the application of behavioral interventions online, without compromising effectiveness.