Influences of source bias that differ from source untrustworthiness: When flip-flopping is more and less surprising

Effects of Message-Sidedness on Perceived Source Bias: When Presenting Two Sides Does Versus Does Not Alleviate Concerns About Bias

Communicators commonly present two-sided messages to avoid being perceived as biased. This approach equates bias with one-sidedness rather than divergence from the position supported by available data. Messages often concern topics with mixed qualities: a product is exceptional but expensive; a politician is inexperienced but ethical. For these topics, providing a two-sided message should reduce perceived bias according to both views of bias as one-sidedness and divergence from available data. However, if perceived bias follows divergence from available data, for topics viewed as one-sided (univalent), a two-sided message should not reduce perceived bias. Across five studies, acknowledging two sides reduced perceived bias for novel topics. In two of the studies, two-sidedness no longer reduced perceived bias for topics viewed as univalent. This work clarifies that people conceptualize bias as a divergence from available data, not simply one-sidedness. It also clarifies when and how to leverage message-sidedness to reduce perceived bias.

Information gaps in persuasion knowledge: The discourse regarding the Covid-19 vaccination

Persuasion knowledge is personal knowledge about persuasion attempts that has an effect on the way people respond to these attempts. Persuasion attempts are made to effectively handling the Covid-19 pandemic, which is dependent on high public compliance with vaccination programs. Drawing on the idea of persuasion knowledge, we aimed at elaborating the various categories of perceived information gaps experienced by vaccine hesitants during the Covid-19 vaccination campaign. At the beginning of 2021 we conducted 20 in-depth interviews with Israelis who had decided not to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Analysis of the interviews revealed three main categories of information gaps experienced by the interviewees: missing information, manipulated information, and discrepant information. We analyzed how these are associated with distrust and may impair the persuasion efforts of governments and health authorities. Perceived information gaps, as part of persuasion knowledge, may increase negative responses, and therefore constitute an important factor in persuasion campaigns.

The intentions of information sources can affect what information people think qualifies as true

The concept of truth is at the core of science, journalism, law, and many other pillars of modern society. Yet, given the imprecision of natural language, deciding what information should count as true is no easy task, even with access to the ground truth. How do people decide whether a given claim of fact qualifies as true or false? Across two studies (N = 1181; 16,248 observations), participants saw claims of fact alongside the ground truth about those claims. Participants classified each claim as true or false. Although participants knew precisely how accurate the claims were, participants classified claims as false more often when they judged the information source to be intending to deceive (versus inform) their audience, and classified claims as true more often when they judged the information source to be intending to provide an approximate (versus precise) account. These results suggest that, even if people have access to the same set of facts, they might disagree about the truth of claims if they attribute discrepant intentions to information sources. Such findings may shed light on the robust and persistent disagreements over claims of fact that have arisen in the "post-truth era".

Desirable Biases: Self-Enhancement Is Seen as Biased and Bad, Other-Enhancement Is Seen as Biased but Good

People who describe themselves as better than others are evaluated negatively, particularly when such self-enhancement is perceived as biased. This research replicates this finding, but it shows the opposite pattern for other-enhancement. People making flattering descriptions of their relatives and loved ones were seen as biased but likeable, whereas people who did not do so were seen as more realistic but less likeable. Critically, the enhancement of other people only inspired favorable impressions when it was perceived as sincere (i.e., true in the eyes of the enhancer). Moreover, and in line with an attributional account, the fewer people shared that assessment, the more it was perceived to reveal about the enhancer and how much they liked the target of the enhancement. This research suggests a nuanced version of the role of bias perception in impression formation, whereby biased appraisals are expected in certain domains, and they can inspire favorable impressions.

Why are people antiscience, and what can we do about it?

From vaccination refusal to climate change denial, antiscience views are threatening humanity. When different individuals are provided with the same piece of scientific evidence, why do some accept whereas others dismiss it? Building on various emerging data and models that have explored the psychology of being antiscience, we specify four core bases of key principles driving antiscience attitudes. These principles are grounded in decades of research on attitudes, persuasion, social influence, social identity, and information processing. They apply across diverse domains of antiscience phenomena. Specifically, antiscience attitudes are more likely to emerge when a scientific message comes from sources perceived as lacking credibility; when the recipients embrace the social membership or identity of groups with antiscience attitudes; when the scientific message itself contradicts what recipients consider true, favorable, valuable, or moral; or when there is a mismatch between the delivery of the scientific message and the epistemic style of the recipient. Politics triggers or amplifies many principles across all four bases, making it a particularly potent force in antiscience attitudes. Guided by the key principles, we describe evidence-based counteractive strategies for increasing public acceptance of science.

A brief forewarning intervention overcomes negative effects of salient changes in COVID-19 guidance

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health guidance (e.g., regarding the use of non-medical masks) changed over time. Although many revisions were a result of gains in scientific understanding, we nonetheless hypothesized that making changes in guidance salient would negatively affect evaluations of experts and health-protective intentions. In Study 1 (N = 300), we demonstrate that describing COVID-19 guidance in terms of inconsistency (versus consistency) leads people to perceive scientists and public health authorities less favorably (e.g., as less expert). For participants in Canada (n = 190), though not the U.S. (n = 110), making guidance change salient also reduced intentions to download a contact tracing app. In Study 2 (N = 1399), we show that a brief forewarning intervention mitigates detrimental effects of changes in guidance. In the absence of forewarning, emphasizing inconsistency harmed judgments of public health authorities and reduced health-protective intentions, but forewarning eliminated this effect.

Evaluating Research in Personality and Social Psychology: Considerations of Statistical Power and Concerns About False Findings

Traditionally, statistical power was viewed as relevant to research planning but not evaluation of completed research. However, following discussions of high false finding rates (FFRs) associated with low statistical power, the assumed level of statistical power has become a key criterion for research acceptability. Yet, the links between power and false findings are not as straightforward as described. Assumptions underlying FFR calculations do not reflect research realities in personality and social psychology. Even granting the assumptions, the FFR calculations identify important limitations to any general influences of statistical power. Limits for statistical power in inflating false findings can also be illustrated through the use of FFR calculations to (a) update beliefs about the null or alternative hypothesis and (b) assess the relative support for the null versus alternative hypothesis when evaluating a set of studies. Taken together, statistical power should be de-emphasized in comparison to current uses in research evaluation.

Undermining Your Case to Enhance Your Impact: A Framework for Understanding the Effects of Acts of Receptiveness in Persuasion

Past research has uncovered actions that would seem to undermine but in fact frequently enhance persuasion. For example, expressing doubt about one's view or presenting arguments against it would seem to weaken one's case, but can sometimes promote it. We propose a framework for understanding these findings. We posit that these actions constitute acts of receptiveness-behaviors that signal openness to new information and opposing viewpoints. We review four classes of acts of receptiveness: conveying uncertainty, acknowledging mistakes, highlighting drawbacks, and asking questions. We identify conditions under which and mechanisms through which these actions boost persuasion. Acts of receptiveness appear to be more persuasive when they come from expert or high-status sources, rather than non-expert or low-status sources, and to operate through two primary mechanisms: increased involvement and enhanced source perceptions. Following a review of this work, we delineate potentially novel acts of receptiveness and outline directions for future research.

Influences of Position Justification on Perceived Bias: Immediate Effects and Carryover Across Persuasive Messages

The current research examined how people infer whether novel sources are biased based on their ability to justify their position. Across nine studies, when sources provided weak versus strong arguments, message recipients perceived the source as more biased. This effect held controlling for other possible inferences, such as lack of expertise or untrustworthiness. This research also examined whether perceived source bias on one message can carry over to ambiguously related future persuasive messages. Studies 6 to 8 demonstrated that perceivers use both the perceived bias from an initial message and the argument quality of the second message to determine a source's bias on the new topic. Finally, perceived bias carried over from an initial message can influence persuasion on a second topic (Study 9). Ultimately, the present work provides insight into factors that affect perceived bias and the dynamic consequences of those perceptions.

Lay concepts of source likeability, trustworthiness, expertise, and power: A prototype analysis

Previous research on persuasion has used researcher-generated exemplars to manipulate source characteristics such as likeability, trustworthiness, expertise, or power. This approach has been fruitful, but it relies to some degree on an overlap between researcher understanding of these variables and lay understanding of these variables. Additionally, these exemplar manipulations may have unintentionally affected multiple characteristics and may be limited to certain topics or time periods. In the current work, we sought to provide persuasion researchers with a methodological tool to increase construct and potentially external validity by conducting a prototype analysis of the four traditional source characteristics: likeability, trustworthiness, expertise, and power. This bottom-up approach provided insight into the ways in which recipients perceive sources and allowed us to examine relations between the characteristics. Moving forward, a bottom-up understanding of source characteristics will allow researchers to more effectively develop manipulations that might transcend time and topic as well as isolate their effects to the intended source characteristic.