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Orosz G, Faragó L, Paskuj B, Rakovics Z, Sam-Mine D, Audemard G, Modeliar MS, Krekó P. Softly empowering a prosocial expert in the family: lasting effects of a counter-misinformation intervention in an informational autocracy. Sci Rep 2024; 14:11763. [PMID: 38782940 PMCID: PMC11116454 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-61232-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2023] [Accepted: 05/02/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024] Open
Abstract
The present work is the first to comprehensively analyze the gravity of the misinformation problem in Hungary, where misinformation appears regularly in the pro-governmental, populist, and socially conservative mainstream media. In line with international data, using a Hungarian representative sample (Study 1, N = 991), we found that voters of the reigning populist, conservative party could hardly distinguish fake from real news. In Study 2, we demonstrated that a prosocial intervention of ~ 10 min (N = 801) helped young adult participants discern misinformation four weeks later compared to the control group without implementing any boosters. This effect was the most salient regarding pro-governmental conservative fake news content, leaving real news evaluations intact. Although the hypotheses of the present work were not preregistered, it appears that prosocial misinformation interventions might be promising attempts to counter misinformation in an informational autocracy in which the media is highly centralized. Despite using social motivations, it does not mean that long-term cognitive changes cannot occur. Future studies might explore exactly how these interventions can have an impact on the long-term cognitive processing of news content as well as their underlying neural structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gábor Orosz
- ULR 7369 -URePSSS - Unité de Recherche Pluridisciplinaire Sport Santé Société, Sherpas, Univ. Lille, Univ. Littoral Côte d'Opale, Univ. Artois, Arras, France.
| | - Laura Faragó
- Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Benedek Paskuj
- Department of Psychology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Zsófia Rakovics
- Faculty of Social Sciences, Research Center for Computational Social Science, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
- MTA-TK Lendület "Momentum" Digital Social Science Research Group for Social Stratification, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Diane Sam-Mine
- ULR 7369 -URePSSS - Unité de Recherche Pluridisciplinaire Sport Santé Société, Sherpas, Univ. Lille, Univ. Littoral Côte d'Opale, Univ. Artois, Arras, France
| | | | | | - Péter Krekó
- Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
- Political Capital Institute, Budapest, Hungary
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Wu PF. Veni, vidi, vici? On the rise of scrape‐and‐report scholarship in online reviews research. J Assoc Inf Sci Technol 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/asi.24729] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Philip Fei Wu
- School of Business and Management Royal Holloway, University of London Egham UK
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3
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Banerjee S, Chua AY. Calling out fake online reviews through robust epistemic belief. INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.im.2021.103445] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
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Lorenz-Spreen P, Lewandowsky S, Sunstein CR, Hertwig R. How behavioural sciences can promote truth, autonomy and democratic discourse online. Nat Hum Behav 2020; 4:1102-1109. [PMID: 32541771 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-020-0889-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 45] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2019] [Accepted: 04/23/2020] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
Public opinion is shaped in significant part by online content, spread via social media and curated algorithmically. The current online ecosystem has been designed predominantly to capture user attention rather than to promote deliberate cognition and autonomous choice; information overload, finely tuned personalization and distorted social cues, in turn, pave the way for manipulation and the spread of false information. How can transparency and autonomy be promoted instead, thus fostering the positive potential of the web? Effective web governance informed by behavioural research is critically needed to empower individuals online. We identify technologically available yet largely untapped cues that can be harnessed to indicate the epistemic quality of online content, the factors underlying algorithmic decisions and the degree of consensus in online debates. We then map out two classes of behavioural interventions-nudging and boosting- that enlist these cues to redesign online environments for informed and autonomous choice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Lorenz-Spreen
- Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Stephan Lewandowsky
- School of Psychological Science and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.,School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
| | | | - Ralph Hertwig
- Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
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La Bella A, Fronzetti Colladon A, Battistoni E, Castellan S, Francucci M. Assessing perceived organizational leadership styles through twitter text mining. J Assoc Inf Sci Technol 2017. [DOI: 10.1002/asi.23918] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Agostino La Bella
- Department of Enterprise Engineering; University of Rome Tor Vergata; Via del Politecnico, Rome 1 - 00133 Italy
| | - Andrea Fronzetti Colladon
- Department of Enterprise Engineering; University of Rome Tor Vergata; Via del Politecnico, Rome 1 - 00133 Italy
| | - Elisa Battistoni
- Department of Enterprise Engineering; University of Rome Tor Vergata; Via del Politecnico, Rome 1 - 00133 Italy
| | - Silvia Castellan
- Department of Enterprise Engineering; University of Rome Tor Vergata; Via del Politecnico, Rome 1 - 00133 Italy
| | - Matteo Francucci
- Department of Enterprise Engineering; University of Rome Tor Vergata; Via del Politecnico, Rome 1 - 00133 Italy
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