Briony Swire-Thompson
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Psychology
College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Science
Briony Swire-Thompson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Psychology. She is the director of the Psychology of Misinformation Lab and faculty at the Network Science Institute. Her research investigates why people believe in misinformation, why people share misinformation online, and how corrections can be designed to foster belief change. Prior to joining Northeastern, she was a doctoral student at the University of Western Australia’s Cognitive Science Laboratories. She initially came to the USA on a Fulbright scholarship to MIT, where she investigated the impact of perceived source credibility on belief change and voting intentions. She is currently funded by the National Cancer Institute to study cancer misinformation.
Dean’s List Honourable Mention—Recognition of an Outstanding Thesis 2017 Project: The Role of Memory and ideological biases in the Correction of Misinformation, From: University of Western Australia
Fulbright Scholarship to Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2015 – 2016, From: Fulbright Australia Host supervisor: Professor Adam Berinsky, Political Experiments Research Laboratory
Study Abroad Scholarship to the University of Bristol 2004 – 2005, From: The University of Western Australia
Swire-Thompson, B., Dobbs, M., Thomas, A., & DeGutis, J. (2023). Memory failure predicts belief regression after the correction of misinformation. Cognition, 230, 105276.
Swire-Thompson, B. & Lazer, D. (2022). Reducing Health Misinformation in Science: A Call to Arms. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Swire-Thompson, B., Miklaucic, N., Wihbey, J., Lazer, D., & DeGutis, J. (2022). Backfire effects after correcting misinformation are strongly associated with reliability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Swire-Thompson, B., Cook, J., Butler, L., Sanderson, J., Lewandowsky, S, & Ecker, U.K.H. (2021). Correction format has a limited role when debunking misinformation. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications. 6(1), 1-15.
Swire-Thompson, B. DeGutis, J., & Lazer, D. (2020). Searching for the backfire effect: Measurement and design considerations. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9(3), 286-299.
Swire-Thompson, B & Lazer, D. (2020). Public health and online misinformation—Challenges and recommendations. Annual Review of Public Health, 41, 433-451.
Swire-Thompson, B., Ecker, U. K.H., Swire, B., Lewandowsky, S., & Berinsky, A. J. (2020). They might be a liar but they’re my liar: Source evaluation and the prevalence of misinformation. Political Psychology, 41(1), 21-34.
Joseph, K., Swire-Thompson, B., Baum, M., & Lazer D. (2019). Polarized, together: Comparing partisan support for Trump’s tweets using survey and platform-based measures. International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, Vol. 13, pp. 290-301
Grinberg, N., Joseph, K., Friedland, L, Swire-Thompson, B., & Lazer, L. (2019) Voter exposure to fake news on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. election, Science, 363(6425), 374-378.
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Education
Ph.D. in Psychological Science, University of Western Australia
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Contact
