People may repeatedly encounter the same misinformation when it “goes viral.” The results of four main experiments (two preregistered) and a pilot experiment (total N = 2,587) suggest that repeatedly encountering misinformation makes it seem less unethical to spread—regardless of whether one believes it. Seeing a fake-news headline one or four times reduced how unethical participants thought it was to publish and share that headline when they saw it again—even when it was clearly labeled as false and participants disbelieved it, and even after we statistically accounted for judgments of how likeable and popular it was. In turn, perceiving the headline as less unethical predicted stronger inclinations to express approval of it online. People were also more likely to actually share repeated headlines than to share new headlines in an experimental setting. We speculate that repeating blatant misinformation may reduce the moral condemnation it receives by making it feel intuitively true, and we discuss other potential mechanisms that might explain this effect.

Background and Objective: Social networking sites (SNSs) are online platforms that provide individuals with an opportunity to manage their personal relationship and remain updated with the world. The primary objective of the present research was to find the pattern of school students' SNS usage and its influence on their academic performance. Materials and Methods: The setting was an English medium school situated in the metropolitan city of Siliguri in West Bengal. A pretested and predesigned questionnaire was self-administered anonymously by 388 randomly selected students. The data were analyzed using appropriate statistics. Results: Three hundred thirty-eight (87.1%) students used SNS and spent an increased amount of time on these networks. Addiction was seen in 70.7% and was more common in the age group of 17 years and above. Conclusion: There is a need to educate students about the ways of using SNS and the perils associated with it, to help them understand that though very much in trend, they should be used cautiously.

We introduce the construct of relational scope to refer to the degree to which an individual engages in communication with a more or less distant audience, with a contractive relational scope indicating a near audience and an expansive relational scope indicating a distant audience. Drawing on construal level theory, we argue that speakers use abstract messages strategically when faced with an expansive relational scope in order to be widely relevant and relatable. We show that speakers communicate more abstractly with distant others than near others (Studies 1-3) and experience greater fit when message framing matches audience distance (Study 4). We also demonstrate that framing messages abstractly prompts broader relational scope, with speakers more likely to direct concrete (abstract) messages to near (distal) audiences (Study 5). Finally, we show that when procedural information is critical to communication, communication with distant (vs. proximal) others will increasingly emphasize procedures over end states (Study 6).

Society generally encourages individuals to forgive their transgressors because forgiveness can yield many psychological, physiological, and social benefits (Exline & Baumeister, 2000). Nevertheless, victims face barriers to forgiving others, and other people face obstacles that prevent them from encouraging victims to forgive.We aim to provide insight into the various barriers that deter forgiveness by examining the role of the various parties involvedvictims, transgressors, and uninvolved third parties-in creating barriers to forgiveness. We contend that beliefs held by these various parties significantly reduce the likelihood that victims will forgive their transgressors. By identifying how these beliefs impede forgiveness, we can begin to understand more fully why convincing victims to forgive is often a challenge. In our discussion, we also suggest ways by which victims, transgressors, and third parties can overcome these barriers to forgiveness.

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