Mental immunity or cognitive immunity theory is a psychological theory that states that the mind has an immune system of its own.
People with a healthy mental immune system are able to detect misinformation better or spot bad ideas earlier.
As the body immune system detects pathogens and removes them from our body system, mental immune system will detect harmful or incorrect information.
There’s a book to know more by Professor Andy Norman titled Mental Immunity
How to strengthen your mental immune system
- Build awareness of misinformation For this I just assume that the media lies by default
- Develop healthy meta-beliefs Which means that your opinions should be flexible and can change according to evidence.
- Practise self-reflection Diversify your information sources and come up with your own opinions.
My reflection on this
I like to think I have been doing this for a while, and the older I get the more I do it. It does not mean it gets easier though. Also I don’t care about news anymore since they are about things outside my reach and most of the media is just manipulation based on one agenda.
Based on How developing mental immunity can protect us from bad ideas