Cognitive attraction and online misinformation

Acerbi, Alberto

doi:10.1057/s41599-019-0224-y

Cited by 102 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(34 reference statements)

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“…Recent research adopting this theoretical background to study digital media and online misinformation has proven fruitful (Acerbi, 2016(Acerbi, , 2019(Acerbi, , 2020. For example, Acerbi (2019) recently suggested that false information thrives not because it is lowquality information but due to its high psychological attractiveness. Being false per se does not increase the chances of information to become culturally successful, but having properties particularly appealing to the human mind does so (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…eliciting threat, disgust or related to social relations, see infra). Since false information is not constrained by reality, it can more easily be designed to recruit cognitive factors of attraction likely to appeal to the human mind and increase interactions (Acerbi, 2019). For example, in the current digital environment, information producers are encouraged to design clickbait-content with catchy titles to spur Internet users to react on them and to generate profit from their clicks.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, it seems that this factor of attraction is particularly prevalent in the content of fake news (Vosoughi et al, 2018). For instance, Acerbi (2019) revealed that 28% of the 260 fake news articles he surveyed contained threatrelated information. Chua and Banerjee (2018) found that people were more prone to trust and to share dread cancer-related rumors rather than wish ones.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Fourth, we took mentions of sexual themes into account. If sexrelated information has not been specifically studied in the fields of cultural evolution (Acerbi, 2019), some research has suggested that social information mentioning sexual affairs benefited from an advantage in transmission over other type of social information (Mesoudi et al, 2006). Besides, a meta-analysis showed that sexual appeal in ads has a significant positive effect on ad recognition and recall, though not on attitude towards ads or on purchase intention (Wirtz et al, 2018).…”

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Internet users engage more with phatic posts than with health misinformation on Facebook

Berriche

Altay

2020

Palgrave Commun

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Social media like Facebook are harshly criticized for the propagation of health misinformation. Yet, little research has provided in-depth analysis of real-world data to measure the extent to which Internet users engage with it. This article examines 6.5 million interactions generated by 500 posts on an emblematic case of online health misinformation: the Facebook page Santé + Mag, which generates five times more interactions than the combination of the five best-established French media outlets. Based on the literature on cultural evolution, we tested whether the presence of cognitive factors of attraction, that tap into evolved cognitive preferences, such as information related to sexuality, social relations, threat, disgust or negative emotions, could explain the success of Santé + Mag's posts. Drawing from media studies findings, we hypothesized that their popularity could be driven by Internet users' desire to interact with their friends and family by sharing phatic posts (i.e. statements with no practical information fulfilling a social function such as "hello" or "sister, I love you"). We found that phatic posts were the strongest predictor of interactions, followed by posts with a positive emotional valence. While 50% of the posts were related to social relations, only 28% consisted of health misinformation. Despite its cognitive appeal, health misinformation was a negative predictor of interactions. Sexual content negatively predicted interactions and other factors of attraction such as disgust, threat or negative emotions did not predict interactions. These results strengthen the idea that Facebook is first and foremost a social network used by people to foster their social relations, not to spread online misinformation. We encourage researchers working on misinformation to conduct finer-grained analysis of online content and to adopt interdisciplinary approach to study the phatic dimension of communication, together with positive content, to better understand the cultural evolution dynamics of social media.

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Internet users engage more with phatic posts than with health misinformation on Facebook

Berriche

Altay

2020

Palgrave Commun

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“…This was not feasible in the design of the current study. Furthermore, elements of social media (e.g., anonymity) tend to lend themselves to "belligerent venting of anger" (Picard, 2015, p. 38) and individuals tend to be drawn to negative content (Acerbi, 2019). This may account for the high number of negative views/opinions (vs. positive content) that was noted in the collected data.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Confusion Reigns: An Analysis of Responses to U.S. Soccer Age Cut-Off Date Policy Change

Smith

Scarfone

Chittle

et al. 2021

Front. Sports Act. Living

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Relative age effects (RAEs) have been associated with the common practice of grouping athletes by chronological age. Development and selection advantages are often awarded to those who are born closer to, but following, the cut-off date employed by sport systems. In 2015, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced that it would be changing its birth-year registration cut-off date from August 1st to January 1st. This change was introduced to align the U.S. youth soccer calendar with international standards, and simultaneously provide clearer information on player birthdates to “lessen” RAEs. The magnitude of this policy change has led to considerable controversy, with members of the soccer community taking to social media and website blogs, as well as the U.S. Youth Soccer's website, to voice their opinions and general unhappiness with this decision. Thus, the purpose of this study was to provide a summary of online reactions to the policy change, with attention to the manner in which the U.S. Soccer Federation framed (i.e., the underlying rationale for the decision) and publicly communicated its decision to change the annual cut-off date. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze data collected from 63 social media sites (websites, n = 43; forums, n = 16; blogs, n = 4). From the 3,851 pages of text derived from these sources, a total of 404 unique passages of text were identified within 262 stakeholder posts. Four categories emerged from the data: stakeholder discussion, outcomes identified by stakeholders, recommended courses of action, and communication regarding the policy change. In general, the actions of the U.S. Soccer Federation and related outcomes were negatively perceived by stakeholders at various levels of the sport. Resistance to the change may have been reduced through enhanced communication from the national level and opportunities for stakeholder input. While one objective of this policy change was to combat RAEs, previous research suggests this organizational change will only shift which group of athletes experience relative age (dis)advantages. There appears to be a disconnect between the academic literature and sport policy with respect to solutions for RAEs, which can lead to unintended consequences for various sport stakeholders.

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