WARNING This Contains Misinformation: The Effect of Cognitive Factors, Beliefs, and Personality on Misinformation Warning Tag Attitudes

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Kaufman, Robert, Broukhim, Aaron, Haupt, Michael
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866929407987286016
author Kaufman, Robert
Broukhim, Aaron
Haupt, Michael
author_facet Kaufman, Robert
Broukhim, Aaron
Haupt, Michael
contents Social media platforms enhance the propagation of online misinformation by providing large user bases with a quick means to share content. One way to disrupt the rapid dissemination of misinformation at scale is through warning tags, which label content as potentially false or misleading. Past warning tag mitigation studies yield mixed results for diverse audiences, however. We hypothesize that personalizing warning tags to the individual characteristics of their diverse users may enhance mitigation effectiveness. To reach the goal of personalization, we need to understand how people differ and how those differences predict a person's attitudes and self-described behaviors toward tags and tagged content. In this study, we leverage Amazon Mechanical Turk (n = 132) and undergraduate students (n = 112) to provide this foundational understanding. Specifically, we find attitudes towards warning tags and self-described behaviors are positively influenced by factors such as Personality Openness and Agreeableness, Need for Cognitive Closure (NFCC), Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) score, and Trust in Medical Scientists. Conversely, Trust in Religious Leaders, Conscientiousness, and political conservatism were negatively correlated with these attitudes and behaviors. We synthesize our results into design insights and a future research agenda for more effective and personalized misinformation warning tags and misinformation mitigation strategies more generally.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_02710
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle WARNING This Contains Misinformation: The Effect of Cognitive Factors, Beliefs, and Personality on Misinformation Warning Tag Attitudes
Kaufman, Robert
Broukhim, Aaron
Haupt, Michael
Human-Computer Interaction
Social and Information Networks
Social media platforms enhance the propagation of online misinformation by providing large user bases with a quick means to share content. One way to disrupt the rapid dissemination of misinformation at scale is through warning tags, which label content as potentially false or misleading. Past warning tag mitigation studies yield mixed results for diverse audiences, however. We hypothesize that personalizing warning tags to the individual characteristics of their diverse users may enhance mitigation effectiveness. To reach the goal of personalization, we need to understand how people differ and how those differences predict a person's attitudes and self-described behaviors toward tags and tagged content. In this study, we leverage Amazon Mechanical Turk (n = 132) and undergraduate students (n = 112) to provide this foundational understanding. Specifically, we find attitudes towards warning tags and self-described behaviors are positively influenced by factors such as Personality Openness and Agreeableness, Need for Cognitive Closure (NFCC), Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) score, and Trust in Medical Scientists. Conversely, Trust in Religious Leaders, Conscientiousness, and political conservatism were negatively correlated with these attitudes and behaviors. We synthesize our results into design insights and a future research agenda for more effective and personalized misinformation warning tags and misinformation mitigation strategies more generally.
title WARNING This Contains Misinformation: The Effect of Cognitive Factors, Beliefs, and Personality on Misinformation Warning Tag Attitudes
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Social and Information Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.02710