An official website of the United States government
Background. Vaccine misinformation has been widely spread on social media, but attempts to combat it have not taken advantage of the attributes of social media platforms for health education. Methods. The objective was to test the efficacy of moderated social media discussions about COVID-19 vaccines in private Facebook groups. Unvaccinated U.S. adults were recruited using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and randomized. In the intervention group, moderators posted two informational posts per day for 4 weeks and engaged in relationship-building interactions with group members. In the control group, participants received a referral to Facebook’s COVID-19 Information Center. Follow-up surveys with participants (N = 478) were conducted 6 weeks post-enrollment. Results. At 6 weeks follow-up, no differences were found in vaccination rates. Intervention participants were more likely to show improvements in their COVID-19 vaccination intentions (vs. stay same or decline) compared with control (p = .03). They also improved more in their intentions to encourage others to vaccinate for COVID-19. There were no differences in COVID-19 vaccine confidence or intentions between groups. General vaccine and responsibility to vaccinate were higher in the intervention compared with control. Most participants in the intervention group reported high levels of satisfaction. Participants engaged with content (e.g., commented, reacted) 11.8 times on average over the course of 4 weeks. Conclusions. Engaging with vaccine-hesitant individuals in private Facebook groups improved some COVID-19 vaccine-related beliefs and represents a promising strategy.
more »
« less
Can Invalid Information Be Ignored When It Is Detected?
With the rapid spread of information via social media, individuals are prone to misinformation exposure that they may utilize when forming beliefs. Over five experiments (total N = 815 adults, recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk in the United States), we investigated whether people could ignore quantitative information when they judged for themselves that it was misreported. Participants recruited online viewed sets of values sampled from Gaussian distributions to estimate the underlying means. They attempted to ignore invalid information, which were outlier values inserted into the value sequences. Results indicated participants were able to detect outliers. Nevertheless, participants’ estimates were still biased in the direction of the outlier, even when they were most certain that they detected invalid information. The addition of visual warning cues and different task scenarios did not fully eliminate systematic over- and underestimation. These findings suggest that individuals may incorporate invalid information they meant to ignore when forming beliefs.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2305559
- PAR ID:
- 10540469
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Psychological Science
- Volume:
- 35
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0956-7976
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 328-344
- Size(s):
- p. 328-344
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract People’s beliefs are influenced by interactions within their communities. The propagation of this influence through conversational social networks should impact the degree to which community members synchronize their beliefs. To investigate, we recruited a sample of 140 participants and constructed fourteen 10-member communities. Participants first rated the accuracy of a set of statements (pre-test) and were then provided with relevant evidence about them. Then, participants discussed the statements in a series of conversational interactions, following pre-determined network structures (clustered/non-clustered). Finally, they rated the accuracy of the statements again (post-test). The results show that belief synchronization, measuring the increase in belief similarity among individuals within a community from pre-test to post-test, is influenced by the community’s conversational network structure. This synchronization is circumscribed by a degree of separation effect and is equivalent in the clustered and non-clustered networks. We also find that conversational content predicts belief change from pre-test to post-test.more » « less
-
Abstract In a high‐risk environment, such as during an epidemic, people are exposed to a large amount of information, both accurate and inaccurate. Following exposure, they typically discuss the information with each other. Here, we assess the effects of such conversations on beliefs. A sample of 126 M‐Turk participants rated the accuracy of a set of COVID‐19 statements, including accurate information, inaccurate information, and conspiracy theories (pre‐test). They were then paired and asked to discuss these statements (low epistemic condition) or to discuss only the statements they thought were accurate (high epistemic condition). Finally, they rated the accuracy of the initial statements again (post‐test). We do not find an effect of the epistemic condition on belief change. However, we find that individuals are sensitive to their conversational partners and change their beliefs according to their partners' conveyed beliefs. In exploratory analyses, we report predictors of believing COVID‐19 conspiracies.more » « less
-
The goal of this project is to better understand the beliefs that undergraduate students hold about their own intelligence and how these beliefs change during their undergraduate engineering education. The research team has used the theoretical framework established by Carol Dweck on Mindset and how different fixed and growth mindsets affect success. Fixed mindset individuals believe that their intelligence is an unchanging trait, while people with a growth mindset believe that through effort they can grow and develop greater intelligence. Prior researchers have shown that individuals with a growth mindset respond to challenges with higher levels of persistence, are more interested in improving upon past failures, and value criticism and effort more than those with a fixed mindset. The team developed an interview protocol from the theoretical framework. Then the team piloted the protocol and subsequently modified the protocol multiple times to ensure that the interviews provided rich qualitative data. Analytic memos were used to analyze and modify the piloted interview protocols. Once the final protocol was established, first-year and senior students were recruited to provide cross-sectional insight. The team also recruited using purposeful sampling to ensure that women and underrepresented minorities were included. To date, 19 interviews have been conducted with the final protocol. Of these interviews, four have been coded in detail using the “Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs” coding system. A codebook has also been started to categorize and interconnect the themes in the interview transcripts. This paper provides details of the protocol and coding process as well as preliminary findings on the themes extracted from the student interviews.more » « less
-
Human-robot interaction (HRI) studies have found people overtrust robots in domestic settings, even when the robot exhibits faulty behavior. Cognitive dissonance and selective attention explain these results. To test these theories, a novel HRI study was performed in a university library where participants were recruited to follow a package delivery robot. Participants then faced a dilemma to deliver a package in a private common room that might be off-limits. Then, they faced another dilemma when the robot stopped in front of an Emergency Exit door, and they had to trust the robot whether to open it or not Results showed individuals did not overtrust the robot and open the Emergency Exit door. Interestingly, most individuals demurred from entering the private common room when packages were not labeled, whereas groups of friends were more likely to enter the room. Then, selective attention was demonstrated by stopping participants in front of a similar Emergency Exit door and assessing whether they noticed it In one condition, only half of participants noticed it, and when the robot became more engaging no one noticed it. Additionally, a malfunctioning robot is exhibited, showing what kind of negative outcome was required to reduce trust.more » « less
