Inoculation with a random news generator decreases preferences for scientifically unsupported herbal products

Herbal products, many scientifically unsupported, are a popular means of improving health. Given the uncritical media coverage of herbal remedies that previous research documents, we aimed to develop an effective tool to promote their more critical consumption. We developed an inoculation-based intervention - a random news generator that reveals the persuasive strategies commonly used by the media: appeals to nature, tradition, availability, and pseudoscientific jargon. We tested the effectiveness of the intervention across three preregistered experimental studies. In a classical laboratory setting (N = 243), we demonstrated the effectiveness of active inoculation - a guided use of the random news generator which motivated participants to refute media strategies; the effects persisted ten days after the intervention. Based on these findings, we developed a self-standing online intervention and tested it with a sample of students (N = 439) and a community sample (N = 452). The intervention led to a more critical evaluation of a fictive herbal product, an unrelated alternative practice, as well as reduced intentions to use a broader range of herbs to improve health and general trust in traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine industry. The inoculation was more efficient in reducing trust among participants with an intuitive thinking style who endorse magical health and extra-sensory perception beliefs, thus, among participants whose profile is predictive of greater use of herbal remedies. The developed tool has a range of possible applications within different stakeholder groups.