When Truth Misleads -- Phase-Aware Coherence Detection for Misinformation Correction Across Epistemic Communities
Heimo Müller, Andreas Holzinger
Abstract
Truth can mislead not because it is false but because delivering it through the wrong channel or authority to an audience with a different epistemic frame can harden misbelief rather than reduce it. Conventional fact checking assumes a shared epistemology that corrections from credible institutional sources will be received constructively across audiences. Evidence suggests instead that effectiveness declines and can reverse into backfire as the distance between source positioning and recipient epistemic orientation grows. We introduce Phase Aware Coherence Detection PACD which operationalises epistemic orientation from pre intervention assessments across institutional trust scientific epistemology conspiracy or anti elite openness and experiential or alternative epistemology. In a study of 45 participants we stratified individuals into three epistemic clusters and randomly assigned them to traditional fact checking phase aware coherence analysis or control before evaluating three claims 5G health effects urban trees and air quality and mRNA vaccine mechanism. Traditional fact checking shifted beliefs toward truth on average but produced substantial backfire and sharply reduced effectiveness among more sceptical participants. Phase aware coherence analysis produced little average change overall yet remained stable across epistemic clusters and substantially reduced backfire. On identity adjacent claims traditional fact checking increased confidence while reducing accuracy whereas phase aware framing avoided this harm. These findings motivate a shift from content centric to epistemology centric correction when truth misleads the problem is often a mismatch between audience orientation and the reference frame of the intervention.