Hi.
My name is Alexandros Efstratiou and I’ll be presenting our paper entitled “Adherence
to Misinformation on Social Media Through Socio-Cognitive and Group-Based Processes”,
co-authored with Emiliano De Cristofaro.
This is a literature review which aims to bring existing work from various fields into
explicit conversation with CSCW, and to focus on social and cognitive factors which enable
misinformation from the perspective of the receiver.
Through this, we aim to identify actionable insights and future research directions.
Our approach is to examine adherence to misinformation, that is, when are people likely to believe
in, share, or otherwise endorse misinformation, and to present conclusions around what is
likely to increase or decrease the psychological cost of doing so.
We first present some information passing theories, before going on to cognitive enablers
of misinformation and how these may inform corrections to it.
Finally, we conclude with the role of online groups in online misinformation.
There are two main accounts of information parsing that are very relevant to misinformation.
One is known as the motivated reasoning or bias account, which holds that people passively
accept agreeable information but reason against disagreeable information.
This possibly involves emotional processes and also includes social identity motivations.
For example, I am more likely to reject a piece of information if it goes against my
partisan beliefs.
The other account is known as the lazy reasoning or inattention account, and it holds that
the problem is not really biased reasoning, but rather, no reasoning at all.
That is, more an adult analytical people are better at discerning false from true information
and people do actually seem to care about accuracy.
For example, reminding users about information accuracy increases the veracity of news that
they subsequently share.
From information parsing we may conclude that there may be an increased cost of adhering
to misinformation for the user if the information environment is deliberative, if their attention
is shifted to accuracy, or if they perceive agency and freedom in expressing their views.
There may be a decreased cost of adhering to misinformation for them if they experience
a threat to their social identity, or if accurate information conflicts with individual or social
values.
Then, we move on to cognitive enablers of misinformation.
There are various, but we focus on three here.
Starting from memory, there is the so-called continued influence effect; that is, misinformation
continues to affect people's judgement even after corrections or explicit warnings.
For example, even if I am warned that one person always tells lies -- and I know that
for a fact -- I may still allow their words to affect my subsequent judgments.
Being more specific in corrections can be more effective, but it still does not fully
eliminate the stickiness of misinformation in memory.
Then, there is also the misinformation effect, where subtle contextual cues such as verbal
descriptions of an event can affect how this information or this event is subsequently
recalled.
Misinformation can alter the actual memory recall of events especially when this misinformation
agrees with our preconceptions.
For example, I am more likely to allow information that agrees with my partisan beliefs to change
my recollection of an event than if it did not agree with my partisan beliefs.
False consensus is another problem, where if we believe misinformation, we may also
mistakenly think that the majority of people also believe it and this has been reported
in the context of climate change deniers.
Misinformation also often originates from one source but is disseminated through multiple
channels, which can create the illusion that there is more support for this misinformation
than in actuality.
Ambiguity is the third problem.
Need for cognitive closure, which describes some people’s trait to always seek out direct
and conclusive answers without allowing any room for ambiguity, reduces their ability
to consider mixed evidence and also makes them more susceptible to memory biases.
Inducing uncertainty by probing people's true understanding in things such as events or
policies can reduce their belief extremity on these events or policies, and as an example
of ambiguity aversion, people are more willing to consult AI accuracy suggestions for emerging
topics, for example, COVID-19 during its early outbreak, rather than for topics for which
they have established opinions, for example, COVID-19 today.
When trying to correct misinformation, fact-checking is probably one of the most common ways of
going about that and it actually is most effective when we consider cognitive enablers that we've
just discussed.
So for example, fact-checking is most effective when people do not initially generate more
explanations in line with the misinformation, when misinformation is refuted before it is
consolidated in memory (the so-called pre-bunking), and went debunking is detailed -- in other
words, provides alternative explanations rather than being vague.
Fact-checking is less effective when claims are only partially debunked, when the receiver
is a strongly identified partisan, and when the fact-check concerns election campaign
claims.
Fact-checks are effective on various issues such as climate change and immigration, but
they are still more acceptable when they agree with our pre-existing opinions as we’ve
said before.
Some scholars have also raised the potential of backfire effects; that is, situations in
which fact-checks can make people believe in the misinformation more strongly than before.
Experimental studies have cast doubts on this effect, however, in the wild on social media
the story may be a little bit more complicated because the relationship between the fact
checking account and the user, the user's partisan identity, and their degree of partisanship
are all factors that play a role in fact-check integrity or the potential for backfire effects.
So, we do need more research in the wild to examine the exact predominance of backfire
effects.
When it comes to correcting misinformation, there may be an increased cost of adhering
to misinformation when -- generally – a fact check is presented, especially if it
comprehensively resolves gaps in understanding, when a user realizes that their misinformed
opinion is fringe and not widespread, and when they realize that their understanding
on complex topics may not be as good as they previously thought.
The user may experience a decreased cost of adhering to misinformation when they are unaware
of the persistent effects of misinformation on memory, and when corrections are not exhaustive
enough to prevent alternative explanations.
Then we move on to group perspectives and communities.
There are two main problems around group perspectives.
The first is echo chambers which have been documented widely on various platforms, but
also intergroup interactions, which do occur, but when they do occur, they tend to be more
hostile and negative.
Both of these can create problems for deliberative democracy functions of online networks.
In the context of extremism for example, information exchange tends to be centered around painting
the outgroup as a villain, and not necessarily towards accuracy.
So this creates a special kind of misinformation which we call outgroup-directed.
Engagement with calls to collective action can lead to elevated extremism and adoption
of severely misinformed and radical opinions, for example, support for terrorist groups.
Prejudice and dehumanization enable this adherence to mistaken beliefs about outgroups, so partisans
overestimate the degree to which the outgroup is prejudiced against them, and thus they
may even rationalize reciprocal prejudice in this way.
Groups tend to also reciprocate dehumanization when they perceive it, but they are unlikely
to view the outgroups prejudice as being reciprocal itself and this describes a bit of a self-serving
bias in which we always try to cast the outgroup as the perpetrator.
On the plus side, correcting mistaken meta-perceptions can reduce misperceptions about an outgroup.
When it comes to group perspectives therefore, there may be an increased cost of adhering
to misinformation when conversations between users are deliberative and when mistaken meta-perceptions
about outgroups are corrected, so for example, correcting what one person thinks that an
outgroup thinks about them.
They may experience decreased costs of adhering to misinformation when they only engage in
echo chambers, when intergroup interactions are combative, and when groups hold mistaken
perceptions against other groups which they can then use to rationalize intergroup animus
as being reactive.
Thank you very, very much for your attention.
Please do see the full paper for way more detail, some research directions that we identified
but could not cover here due to time constraints, as well as a lot more depth and more recommendations
around the things that we've just discussed.
Thank you again for your attention and I'm looking forward to your questions.