Identity and Epistemic Emotions During Knowledge Revision: A Potential Account for the Backfire Effect

Emotions in self-regulated learning: A critical literature review and meta-analysis

Emotion has been recognized as an important component in the framework of self-regulated learning (SRL) over the past decade. Researchers explore emotions and SRL at two levels. Emotions are studied as traits or states, whereas SRL is deemed functioning at two levels: Person and Task × Person. However, limited research exists on the complex relationships between emotions and SRL at the two levels. Theoretical inquiries and empirical evidence about the role of emotions in SRL remain somewhat fragmented. This review aims to illustrate the role of both trait and state emotions in SRL at Person and Task × Person levels. Moreover, we conducted a meta-analysis to synthesize 23 empirical studies that were published between 2009 and 2020 to seek evidence about the role of emotions in SRL. An integrated theoretical framework of emotions in SRL is proposed based on the review and the meta-analysis. We propose several research directions that deserve future investigation, including collecting multimodal multichannel data to capture emotions and SRL. This paper lays a solid foundation for developing a comprehensive understanding of the role of emotions in SRL and asking important questions for future investigation.

The differential effects of a governmental debunking campaign concerning COVID-19 vaccination misinformation

BACKGROUND

Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic debunking misinformation has been one of the most employed strategies used to address vaccine hesitancy. We investigated whether - and for whom - debunking is effective or even counterproductive in decreasing misinformation belief and vaccination hesitancy.

METHOD

We conducted a randomized controlled trial (N = 588) utilizing a real-world debunking campaign from the German Ministry of Health. We considered the condition (debunking vs. control) as between-subjects factor, assessed misinformation belief (pretest vs. posttest) as a repeated-measures factor and vaccination intention as a dependent variable. Preregistered subgroup analyses were conducted for different levels of a priori misinformation belief and general vaccination confidence.

RESULTS

The analyses revealed differential effects on misinformation belief and vaccination intention in participants with low, medium, and high a priori belief: A debunking effect on misinformation belief (d_RM = -0.80) was only found in participants with a medium a priori belief and did not extend to these participants' vaccination intentions. Among participants with a high a priori misinformation belief, explorative analysis revealed a small unintended backfiring effect on vaccination intentions (η_p² = 0.03).

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that debunking is an effective communication strategy to address moderate levels of misinformation beliefs, but it does not constitute a one-fits-all strategy to reduce vaccination hesitancy among the general public. Although countering misinformation should certainly be an integral part of public health communication, additional initiatives, which address individual concerns with targeted and authentic communication, should be taken to enhance the impact on hesitant populations and avoid backfiring effects.

Refuting misconceptions in an introductory psychology course for preservice teachers

This experimental field study (pre-post-follow-up design) with 184 student teachers examined the effectiveness of an intervention to reduce misconceptions about psychology within an introductory psychology course. For this purpose, over the course’s one-semester duration, all students attended six lectures and, in addition, worked individually on six assignments in between. In both, the intervention and control group, assignments covered the same learning content but assignments for the intervention group particularly addressed six topic-related misconceptions, and were designed to bring about conceptual change. These assignments included refutational texts and other tasks that triggered conceptual inconsistency and emphasized students’ use of scientific concepts. Students in the control group completed assignments designed for rehearsal of and elaboration on the topics at hand but were not exposed to the respective misconceptions. The findings demonstrate the efficacy of this slight modification of tasks in reducing students’ misconceptions around psychology. While the groups did not differ in exam performance, the positive associations found between exam performance and high-confidence rejection of psychological myths, and their correlation with evaluativist epistemic beliefs and critical thinking, underline the importance of early interventions in teacher education with the aim of dispelling misconceptions about psychology.

The ‘Fauci Effect’: Reducing COVID-19 Misconceptions and Vaccine Hesitancy Using an Authentic Multimodal Intervention

Social media environments enable users to proliferate misinformation surrounding COVID-19. Expert sources, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci have leveraged social media to present corrective multimedia messages. However, little is known about the efficacy of these messages in revising common misconceptions about COVID-19 and influencing behavior. In this study, we examined the efficacy of a multimodal intervention using authentic social media messages that directly addressed common COVID-19 misconceptions. Going further, we identified individual differences that influenced the effectiveness of the intervention, as well as whether those factors predicted individuals’ willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The results showed that the intervention was successful in increasing knowledge when compared to a baseline control. Those who were older and reported less vaccine hesitancy showed greater learning from the intervention. Factors that significantly predicted intention to vaccinate included receiving the intervention, vaccine confidence, vaccine hesitancy, prior flu vaccination history, age, and fear of COVID-19. These findings indicate that multimodal messages can be effectively leveraged in social media to both fight misinformation and increase intention to be vaccinated - however, these interventions may not be as effective for all individuals.

Leveraging Machine Learning to Understand How Emotions Influence Equity Related Education: Quasi-Experimental Study

BACKGROUND

Teaching and learning about topics such as bias are challenging due to the emotional nature of bias-related discourse. However, emotions can be challenging to study in health professions education for numerous reasons. With the emergence of machine learning and natural language processing, sentiment analysis (SA) has the potential to bridge the gap.

OBJECTIVE

To improve our understanding of the role of emotions in bias-related discourse, we developed and conducted a SA of bias-related discourse among health professionals.

METHODS

We conducted a 2-stage quasi-experimental study. First, we developed a SA (algorithm) within an existing archive of interviews with health professionals about bias. SA refers to a mechanism of analysis that evaluates the sentiment of textual data by assigning scores to textual components and calculating and assigning a sentiment value to the text. Next, we applied our SA algorithm to an archive of social media discourse on Twitter that contained equity-related hashtags to compare sentiment among health professionals and the general population.

RESULTS

When tested on the initial archive, our SA algorithm was highly accurate compared to human scoring of sentiment. An analysis of bias-related social media discourse demonstrated that health professional tweets (n=555) were less neutral than the general population (n=6680) when discussing social issues on professionally associated accounts (χ² [2, n=555)]=35.455; P<.001), suggesting that health professionals attach more sentiment to their posts on Twitter than seen in the general population.

CONCLUSIONS

The finding that health professionals are more likely to show and convey emotions regarding equity-related issues on social media has implications for teaching and learning about sensitive topics related to health professions education. Such emotions must therefore be considered in the design, delivery, and evaluation of equity and bias-related education.

Fostering climate change consensus: The role of intimacy in group discussions

This study examined if creating intimacy in a group discussion is more effective toward reaching consensus about climate change than a focus on information. Participants were randomly assigned to either a group that spent the first part of an online discussion engaging in self-disclosure and focusing on shared values (intimacy condition) or discussing information from an article about climate change (information condition). Afterward, all groups were given the same instructions to try to come to group consensus on their opinions about climate change. Participants in the intimacy condition had higher ratings of social cohesion, group attraction, task interdependence, and collective engagement and lower ratings of ostracism than the information condition. Intimacy groups were more likely to reach consensus, with ostracism and the emotional tone of discussion mediating this effect. Participants were more likely to change their opinion to reflect that climate change is real in the intimacy than information condition.

The effects of experimentally induced emotions on revising common vaccine misconceptions

Knowledge revision is the process of updating incorrect prior knowledge in light of new, correct information. Although theoretical and empirical knowledge has advanced regarding the cognitive processes involved in revision, less is known about the role of emotions, which have shown inconsistent relations with key revision processes. This study examined the effects of experimentally induced emotions on online and offline knowledge revision of vaccination misconceptions. Before reading refutation and non-refutation texts, 96 individuals received a positive, negative, or no emotion induction. Findings showed that negative emotions, more than positive emotions, resulted in enhanced knowledge revision as indicated by greater ease of integrating correct information during reading and higher comprehension test scores after reading. Findings are discussed with respect to contemporary frameworks of knowledge revision and emotion in reading comprehension and implications for educational practice.

When and why do people act on flawed science? Effects of anecdotes and prior beliefs on evidence-based decision-making

Today’s citizens are expected to use evidence, frequently presented in the media, to inform decisions about health, behavior, and public policy. However, science misinformation is ubiquitous in the media, making it difficult to apply research appropriately. Across two experiments, we addressed how anecdotes and prior beliefs impact readers’ ability to both identify flawed science and make appropriate decisions based on flawed science in media articles. Each article described the results of flawed research on one of four educational interventions to improve learning (Experiment 1 included articles about having a tidy classroom and exercising while learning; Experiment 2 included articles about using virtual/augmented reality and napping at school). Experiment 1 tested the impact of a single anecdote and found no significant effect on either participants’ evidence evaluations or decisions to implement the learning interventions. However, participants were more likely to adopt the more plausible intervention (tidy classroom) despite identifying that it was unsupported by the evidence, suggesting effects of prior beliefs. In Experiment 2, we tested whether this intervention effect was driven by differences in beliefs about intervention plausibility and included two additional interventions (virtual reality = high plausible, napping = low plausible). We again found that participants were more likely to implement high plausible than low plausible interventions, and that evidence quality was underweighed as a factor in these decisions. Together, these studies suggest that evidence-based decisions are more strongly determined by prior beliefs than beliefs about the quality of evidence itself.

When Science Denial Meets Epistemic Understanding: Fostering a Research Agenda for Science Education

Science denial has a long history of causing harm in contemporary society when ignored. Recent discussions of science denial suggest that correcting people's false beliefs rarely has an impact on eliminating the adherence to false beliefs and assumptions, which is called the backfire effect. This paper brings the backfire effect within the context of science denial to the attention of science education researchers and practitioners and discusses the potential role(s) of epistemic understanding of knowledge production in science in dealing with the rejection of scientific evidence and claims in science classrooms. The use of epistemic understanding of knowledge production in science with a focus on avoiding the backfire effect may increase the potential for science education research to produce fruitful strategies which advance students' attitudes toward science and deepen students' understanding of how science works through divergent perspectives. There are some areas that need to be focused on and investigated for their potential to combat science denial and the backfire effect while foregrounding the role(s) epistemic understanding of knowledge production for science instruction. These areas include expanding ways of knowing and marking the boundary between the scientific way of knowing and other ways of knowing at the same time, comparing claims and arguments that derive from different frameworks, teaching about the power and limitations of science, and bringing different and similar ways science is done to students' attention.

Information overload for (bounded) rational agents

Bayesian inference offers an optimal means of processing environmental information and so an advantage in natural selection. We consider the apparent, recent trend in increasing dysfunctional disagreement in, for example, political debate. This is puzzling because Bayesian inference benefits from powerful convergence theorems, precluding dysfunctional disagreement. Information overload is a plausible factor limiting the applicability of full Bayesian inference, but what is the link with dysfunctional disagreement? Individuals striving to be Bayesian-rational, but challenged by information overload, might simplify by using Bayesian networks or the separation of questions into knowledge partitions, the latter formalized with quantum probability theory. We demonstrate the massive simplification afforded by either approach, but also show how they contribute to dysfunctional disagreement.

Searching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design Considerations

One of the most concerning notions for science communicators, fact-checkers, and advocates of truth, is the backfire effect; this is when a correction leads to an individual increasing their belief in the very misconception the correction is aiming to rectify. There is currently a debate in the literature as to whether backfire effects exist at all, as recent studies have failed to find the phenomenon, even under theoretically favorable conditions. In this review, we summarize the current state of the worldview and familiarity backfire effect literatures. We subsequently examine barriers to measuring the backfire phenomenon, discuss approaches to improving measurement and design, and conclude with recommendations for fact-checkers. We suggest that backfire effects are not a robust empirical phenomenon, and more reliable measures, powerful designs, and stronger links between experimental design and theory could greatly help move the field ahead.

The effects of positive and negative emotional text content on knowledge revision

Across three experiments, we sought to determine the effects of positive and negative emotional content in refutation texts on misconceptions about vaccines. The addition of negative emotional content to texts that identify, refute, and explain vaccine misconceptions improved knowledge revision observed during reading (Experiment 1). However, the addition of positive emotional content to refutation texts weakened this effect (Experiment 2). A direct comparison between negative and positive emotional content provided corroborating evidence for these findings (Experiment 3). Across experiments, results show that all refutation texts (with or without positive or negative emotional content) improved learning assessed after reading. These findings show the differential effects of emotional content on processing misconceptions about an important socio-scientific topic and provide consistent support for refutation texts as a potentially useful tool in these corrective efforts.

A model and simulation of the emotional contagion of netizens in the process of rumor refutation

The emotional contagion of netizens is an important factor that accelerates the spread of rumors, and it is also key to the effectiveness of rumor refutation. Based on the existing emotional model, we improved the method for calculating the emotional value and the transformation rules to simulate how the infection transforms individual emotion to group emotion during rumor refutation. The results show that the cycle and trend of netizen emotional change vary by period, but the final distribution structure presents a relatively stable state. The factors that affect the emotional changes of netizens are mainly objective and subjective aspects, both of which can promote the evolution of emotional contagion. The objective aspect depends on the speed and credibility of the rumor, and the subjective aspect depends on the degree of intimacy between netizens. After rumor refutation, emotions generally change from negative emotions to positive or immune emotions.

Knowledge revision through the lenses of the three-pronged approach

In the present study, we employed the three-pronged approach to determine the actual cognitive processes theorized in knowledge revision. First, the Knowledge Revision Components (KReC) framework was identified as the guiding theory. Second, think-aloud analysis highlighted at which points in refutation texts readers detected discrepancies between their incorrect, commonsense beliefs and the correct beliefs, and the exact processes with which they dealt with these discrepancies-successfully or unsuccessfully, as indicated by posttest scores. Third, corroborating reading-time data and posttest data demonstrated that the structure of the refutation texts facilitated the coactivation and integration of the explanation with the commonsense belief, resulting in knowledge revision. Finally, an analysis directly connected the processes identified during think-aloud to sentence reading times. These findings systematically identify the cognitive processes theorized during knowledge revision and, in doing so, provide evidence for the conditions for revision outlined in the KReC framework.

Communicating and enhancing teachers' attitudes and understanding of influenza using refutational text

Influenza is an important public health issue and schools play an important part in preventing influenza outbreaks. However, little is known about teachers' knowledge and attitudes toward influenza and vaccination. The purposes of this project were to assess preservice and early career teachers' knowledge and attitudes of influenza, evaluate the effectiveness of a refutational text on increasing teachers' attitudes towards and knowledge of influenza and vaccination, and evaluate the effects of participant epistemology, motivation, and cognitive engagement on influenza attitudes and knowledge. We implemented an experimental intervention with 64 pre-service and early career teachers on the effects of a refutational text in remedying influenza misconceptions. Teachers in this sample have vaccination rates (36% received five vaccines in a five-year period) consistent with other US adults. Pre-intervention knowledge scores were moderate and attitudes were slightly positive. Positive attitudes were correlated with increased vaccination. We found refutational texts are effective in eliciting more positive attitudes toward influenza vaccination. We found cognitive engagement was positively correlated to change in attitude. Refutational texts provide an effective mode of influenza and vaccination education.

Not wallowing in misery - retractions of negative misinformation are effective in depressive rumination

People often continue to rely on misinformation in their reasoning after they have acknowledged a retraction; this phenomenon is known as the continued-influence effect. Retractions can be particularly ineffective when the retracted misinformation is consistent with a pre-existing worldview. We investigated this effect in the context of depressive rumination. Given the prevalence of depressotypic worldviews in depressive rumination, we hypothesised that depressive rumination may affect the processing of retractions of valenced misinformation; specifically, we predicted that the retraction of negative misinformation might be less effective in depressive ruminators. In two experiments, we found evidence against this hypothesis: in depressive ruminators, retractions of negative misinformation were at least as effective as they were in control participants, and more effective than retractions of positive misinformation. Findings are interpreted in terms of an attentional bias that may enhance the salience of negative misinformation and may thus facilitate its updating in depressive rumination.

Epistemic beliefs as predictors of epistemic emotions: Extending a theoretical model

BACKGROUND

The cognitive incongruity model of epistemic beliefs and emotions states that if students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge (e.g., knowledge as simple and absolute) are incompatible with the epistemic nature of learning materials (e.g., complex and contradictory), cognitive incongruity arises. This, in turn, entails negative emotional consequences.

AIMS

The epistemic nature of contradictory learning materials might be perceived differently depending on whether individuals resolve the contradictions or not. Therefore, extending the cognitive incongruity model, the present paper argues that cognitive (in)congruity also depends on how individuals act on the learning materials. We expect that only if students resolve contradictory scientific claims (e.g., by identifying moderators), more advanced epistemic beliefs (e.g., evaluativism) have positive emotional effects and vice versa.

SAMPLE

A field-experimental study with N = 86 undergraduate psychology students was conducted.

METHOD

Using a multiple-texts approach, participants were first presented controversial evidence on gender stereotyping from 18 different (fictional) studies. In contrast to similar multiple-texts approaches, all contradictions could be resolved by identifying the contextual factors that a certain type of stereotype discrimination occurs in ('resolvable controversies'). After reading, the experimental group was asked to resolve the contradictions, whereas two control groups read the same texts, but were not required to resolve the controversies.

RESULTS

Results revealed that absolute beliefs positively and evaluativistic beliefs negatively predict negative emotions, but only if students were instructed to resolve the contradictions.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that extending the cognitive incongruity model by how students deal with controversial learning materials might be worthwhile.