Learn More

Want to learn more about mental immunity? We’ve compiled some of our favorite resources to help.

Websites

• [Founder] CIRCE^*: The research institute behind the Mental Immunity Project (MIP)
• [Founder] Thinking Is Power^*: A critical thinking resource for teachers and critical thinkers (MIP collaborator)
• Cranky Uncle^*: A fun, interactive game that can boost your mind’s immune system
• Street Epistemology^*: How to explore foundational beliefs without triggering people
• First Draft^*: A treasure trove of tools for combatting online mis- and disinformation
• Inoculation Science^*: Short videos that inoculate against online misinformation
• News Literacy Project: Helping to create a more news-literate America
• Civic Online Reasoning: Curricula that empower students to explore online safely
• Pew Research Center: An excellent source of research on misinformation

Books

• [NEW] On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy, by Lee McIntyre. A powerful, pocket-sized citizen’s guide on how to fight back against the disinformation campaigns that are imperiling American democracy.
• [Recommended] Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think, by Andy Norman.^* Learn how the world’s best thinkers spot and shed bad ideas.
• [Recommended] Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity, by Sander van der Linden.^* Brilliant overview of the science of mental immunity and why it’s essential.
• How to Talk to a Science Denier, by Lee McIntyre.^* A world authority on science denial goes under cover at a Flat Earth convention. What could go wrong?
• What the Fact?: Finding the Truth in All the Noise, by Seema Yasmin.^* How to tell fact from fiction.
• Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change: How to Understand and Respond to Climate Science Deniers , by John Cook.^* How to help people accept the reality of climate change.
• Good Thinking: Why Flawed Logic Puts Us All at Risk and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World, by David Robert Grimes.^* How to protect yourself from charlatans and bad thinking.
• This View Of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution by David Sloan Wilson.^* A stirring call to apply evolutionary thinking to our world’s most important social problems.
• The Skeptic’s Guide to Sports Science, by Nicholas Tiller. How to protect yourself from snake oil salesmen.
• Science Denial: What It Is and What to Do About It, by Gale Sinatra^*and Barbara Hofer
• Science Unlimited?: The Challenges of Scientism, by Maarten Boudry^* and Massimo Pigliucci.
• Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational, by Michael Shermer.^*
• How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion, by David McRaney. Why facts often don’t change our minds — and what does work to change them.
• Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole, by Stephen Law

These books are all great for learning how to think more critically.

Guides and Handbooks

• [NEW] How to mitigate misinformation (PNAS) by M. Mitchell Waldrop
• [NEW] Toolbox of Interventions Against Online Misinformation and Manipulation, a research-based toolbox
• [FOR EDUCATORS] A guide to prebunking: a promising way to inoculate against misinformation (First Draft)
• Debunking Handbook 2020, by John Cook^* and Stephan Lewandowsky^* (Center for Climate Change Communication)
• A Practical Guide to Prebunking Misinformation (Google Jigsaw)
• Take Control (Center for Humane Technology)

These guides and handbooks will help you improve your digital literacy and digital hygiene. If you want to get better at spotting misinformation and disinformation, these should help.

Articles and Videos

• [NEW] Nikki Medoro Show:Fighting online disinformation with the mind’s immune system
• [FOR EDUCATORS] Inoculating Students Against Misinformation with Melanie Trecek-King (Skeptical Inquirer Presents)
• [FOR EDUCATORS] Can You Outsmart a Troll (by Thinking Like One)? by Claire Wardle^* (TED-Ed): A great lesson on pre-bunking
• The Science of Mental Immunity Has Arrived by Andy Norman^* (This View of Life): Andy lays out the basics of Cognitive Immunology
• Prebunking Manipulation Techniques: Emotional Language (Info Interventions): A lesson from Inoculation Science (website above)
• Why We Need to Develop Mental Immunity: Dr. Seema Yasmin on searching for the truth in today’s information ecosystem by Seema Yasmin^* (The Hub)
• Disinformation? There are Remedies for That! by Andy Norman^* and Harris Eyre^* (Psychiatric Times): An Introduction to Cognitive Immunology
• Learning and the Contaminated Mind by Jamie Hale (Center for Inquiry): A lesson on Mindware and dysrationalia
• Building a Healthy Cognitive Immune System (Institute for the Future): An infographic and report that are ahead of their time
• How to Sell Pseudoscience by Melanie Trecek-King^* (Skeptical Inquirer ): Learn to sell pseudoscience so you’re better at spotting it
• How to Inoculate Yourself Against Misinformation by Melanie Trecek-King^* (Thinking Is Power): exactly what the title says!
• [Recommended] Cultural Immune Systems as Parts of Cultural Superorganisms by David Sloan Wilson^* (ProSocial World): The evolutionary context of Cognitive Immunology

If you’re looking to become more familiar with the popular media coverage of issues related to misinformation, disinformation, and the foundational aspects of our work, this list of articles should help.

Games

• Bad News^*: Confers resistance against manipulative information by putting players in the position of the people who create it.
• Cranky Uncle^*: Uses cartoons and humor to expose the misleading techniques of science denial.
• Go Viral^*: Infodemic game that teaches players how to spot coronavirus misinformation in 5 minutes.
• Spot the Troll: test your ability to spot troll accounts on social media and learn what to look out for

Have fun and get smart! These fun games are designed to help you become a better thinker and a smarter consumer of information.

Podcasts and YouTube Channels

• This View of Life Pod: David Sloan Wilson’s^* podcast
• This View of Life: David Sloan Wilson’s^* This View of Life Magazine’s YouTube channel
• Anthony Magnabosco: Street Epistemology^*: Anthony has respectful conversations with people about their beliefs on YouTube
• 502 Conversations: Podcast conversations with skeptics, scientists, and thinkers
• Center for Inquiry: The leading skeptic’ nonprofit doing very important work (YouTube channel)
• The War on Pineapple: This podcast tells the tale of how a deliberate campaign of mind inoculation prevented the big election lie from corrupting the thinking of hundreds of election officials–and how this in turn saved American democracy from a mind-virus.

Our mission is to empower minds. We think these resources will help serve this mission, however, we are not responsible for the information shared in any of the above links that do not link directly to work that has been created or produced by CIRCE

^*Mental Immunity Project affiliate

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