Cognitive reflection correlates with behavior on Twitter

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection and behavior on the social media platform Twitter, using a convenience sample of N = 1,901 individuals from Prolific. We find that people who score higher on the Cognitive Reflection Test—a widely used measure of reflective thinking—were more discerning in their social media use, as evidenced by the types and number of accounts followed, and by the reliability of the news sources they shared. Furthermore, a network analysis indicates that the phenomenon of echo chambers, in which discourse is more likely with like-minded others, is not limited to politics: people who scored lower in cognitive reflection tended to follow a set of accounts which are avoided by people who scored higher in cognitive reflection. Our results help to illuminate the drivers of behavior on social media platforms and challenge intuitionist notions that reflective thinking is unimportant for everyday judgment and decision-making.

The Psychology of Fake News

“…Accordingly, sharing of low-quality news content on Facebook is associated with ideological extremity [70] and ideological concordance is a much stronger predictor of sharing than it is of belief [21]. Furthermore, analytic thinking is not only associated with more truth discernment, as described earlier, but is also associated with having more discerning sharing intentions in survey experiments (both in terms of false [35,44] and hyperpartisan content [35]) and with the actual sharing of more reliable news outlets on Twitter [71]. One striking possibility is that the social media context itself distracts people from prioritizing the truth when they decide what to shareand, in some cases, may actively promote antisocial behavior [72] and hamper the exercise of analytic and critical thinking.…”

“…In particular, political conservatives and older adults were far more likely to visit fake news websites or share fake news articles during the 2016 Presidential Election [19,89,117,118]. Studies have also found associations between political conservatism and belief in misinformation in the USA [20,44], Chile [121], and Germany [122], but not in Hungary [24], and users who engage in less reasoning have been found to share content from lower-quality news sites on Twitter [71]. Thus, even if it was true that the average social media user was not exposed to that much misinformation, exposures rates are substantially higher in subpopulations that may be particularly vulnerable to believing inaccurate content.…”

“…The incorrect intuitive answer -10 centscomes to mind intuitively for most people, whereas the correct answer -5 centsemerges (for most) only with an additional deliberation process [137]. Performance on tasks such as the Cognitive Reflection Test are associated with a wide range of beliefs and behaviors [138], including actual social media behaviors observed on Twitter ( [71]; also [109]), as well as conspiracy ideation [139], politics [140], bullshit receptivity [12], and endorsement of a variety of epistemically suspect beliefs [138]. Importantly, although dual-process theories typically emphasize the importance of overriding incorrect intuitions via analytic thinking, this should not be taken to imply that intuitions are always incorrect or that analytic thinking is always accurate [135].…”

Dissociation, Cognitive Reflection and Health Literacy Have a Modest Effect on Belief in Conspiracy Theories about COVID-19

“…Consistent with previous research, conspiracy mentality and COVID-related conspiracy theories were related to low cognitive reflection and high bullshit receptivity, except for the belief that coronavirus is a hoax, which was found to be independent of bullshit receptivity. People with less analytical cognitive style measured by lower cognitive reflection were shown to be more prone to conspiracy theories about COVID-19 in previous research [7,8] and to follow more untrustworthy information sources on Twitter, which may further increase their exposure to conspiracy theories [35]. While bullshit receptivity was repeatedly shown to be related to belief in generic conspiracy theories [9,10,36], it might not be a strong predictor of COVID-related conspiracy beliefs, perhaps due to the intensive public debate that may make individual attitudes to COVID-19 less dependent on the ability to distinguish meaningful from meaningless statements.…”

Social Media, Cognitive Reflection, and Conspiracy Beliefs

“…They are also less likely to encounter such content to begin with, because they likely are better at curating a more reliable information environment on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. Previous work suggests that higher levels of cognitive reflection were associated with increased ability to discern fake and real news, and generally more responsible social media use (Pennycook and Rand, 2019;Mosleh et al, 2021). Those less cognitively reflective, on the other hand, will likely be more receptive to these conspiracies, because they are more likely to succumb to the intuitive gut reactions that these conspiracies appeal to.…”