Social Influences in Sequential Decision Making

Schöbel, Markus; Rieskamp, Jörg; Huber, Rafael

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0146536

Cited by 28 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…Based on the social media posts, it can be inferred that associated with uncertainties about the coronavirus disease and conflicting messages on the internet, the social environment is another factor relevant to the disobedience to protective precautions taken because of its influence on individuals' decision-making processes [35]. The reactions of young people to the basic protective measures taken by the authorities have caused parents to question themselves about the behaviours and attitudes of their children.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lay perspectives on social distancing and other official recommendations and regulations in the time of COVID-19: a qualitative study of social media posts

Ölçer

Yılmaz-Aslan

Brzoska

2020

Preprint

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Background Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by a new form of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) first appeared in China end of 2019 and quickly spread to all counties of the world. To slow down the spread of the virus and to limit the pressure on the health care systems, different regulations and recommendations have been implemented by authorities, comprising amongst others the closure of all entertainment venues and social distancing. These measures have received mixed reactions, particularly from young individuals, with many not following available advice. Drawing on the information in social media discussion forums, the present study explores the reasons why people ignore the orders and recommendations of the authorities and why the authorities are unable to produce a shared sense of inclusion concerning protective measures against the coronavirus outbreak. Methods Three open-access social media forums (Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube comments) were systematically searched with respect to coronavirus/COVID-19-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours of individuals. The data was retrieved in the first three weeks of March 2020. Qualitative document analysis and qualitative content analysis were used as the methodical approach. The data was reviewed by all authors and jointly interpreted to minimise inconsistencies. Results In the analysis, 22 threads were used from the aforementioned websites. Six main themes were identified: information pollution on social media, the need to know the unusual threat that spreads rapidly, the impacts of the social environment, the role of government’s representatives and politicians, aids without concrete economic steps to satisfy them, and self-criticism by parents related to the behaviours and attitudes of their children. Conclusion In uncertain crises, transparency in the presentation of information and government policies emerge as influential determinants in creating social susceptibility and solidarity. The results further reveal the potential advantages and opportunities of using social media data in scientific investigations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lay perspectives on social distancing and other official recommendations and regulations in the time of COVID-19: a qualitative study of social media posts

Ölçer

Yılmaz-Aslan

Brzoska

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Based on the social media posts, it can be inferred that associated with uncertainties about the SARS-CoV-2 infection and con icting messages on the internet, the social environment is another factor relevant to the disobedience to protective precautions taken because of its in uence on individuals' decision-making processes [35]. The reactions of young people to the basic protective measures taken by the authorities have caused parents to question themselves about the behaviours and attitudes of their children.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lay perspectives on social distancing and other official recommendations and regulations in the time of COVID-19: a qualitative study of social media posts

Ölçer

Yılmaz-Aslan

Brzoska

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: COVID-19 caused by a new form of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) first appeared in China end of 2019 and quickly spread to all counties of the world. To slow down the spread of the virus and to limit the pressure on the health care systems, different regulations and recommendations have been implemented by authorities, comprising amongst others the closure of all entertainment venues and social distancing. These measures have received mixed reactions, particularly from young individuals, with many not following available advice. Drawing on the information in social media discussion forums, the present study explores the reasons why people ignore the orders and recommendations of the authorities and why the authorities are unable to produce a shared sense of inclusion concerning protective measures against the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: Three open-access social media forums (Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube comments) were systematically searched with respect to COVID-19-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours of individuals. The data was retrieved in the first three weeks of March 2020. Qualitative document analysis and qualitative content analysis were used as the methodical approach. The data was reviewed by all authors and jointly interpreted to minimise inconsistencies.Results: The study reveals that reasons such as information pollution on social media, the persistence of uncertainty about the rapidly spreading virus, the impact of the social environment on the individual, and fear of unemployment associated with inequality in the distribution of income lead people to ignore the orders and recommendations of the authorities. The findings suggest that government representatives and politicians could not produce a shared sense of inclusion concerning protective measures against the COVID-19 outbreak, due to not building trust among the public and taking concrete economic steps to satisfy them.Conclusion: In uncertain crises, transparency in the presentation of information and government policies emerge as influential determinants in creating social susceptibility and solidarity. The differences between social classes constitute one of the important factors that affect the decision-making mechanisms of individuals in determining the necessary steps to be undertaken in times of crisis.

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“…The literature documents several experimental results on the adoption of behaviors including network structure -such as the study conducted in [5], [7] and decision making [6], [8]. Under these study, it was observed that individual adoption is much more likely when participants received social reinforcement from multiple neighbors in the social network as opposed to a single exposure.…”

Section: Related Work and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Can social influence be exploited to compromise security

Sarkar

Shakarian

Armenta

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining

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Social media has enabled users and organizations to obtain information about technology usage like software usage and even security feature usage. However, on the dark side it has also allowed an adversary to potentially exploit the users in a manner to either obtain information from them or influence them towards decisions that might have malicious settings or intents. While there have been substantial efforts into understanding how social influence affects one's likelihood to adopt a security technology, especially its correlation with the number of friends adopting the same technology, in this study we investigate whether peer influence can dictate what users decide over and above their own knowledge. To this end, we manipulate social signal exposure in an online controlled experiment with human participants to investigate whether social influence can be harnessed in a negative way to steer users towards harmful security choices. We analyze this through a controlled game where each participant selects one option when presented with six security technologies with differing utilities, with one choice having the most utility. Over multiple rounds of the game, we observe that social influence as a tool can be quite powerful in manipulating a user's decision towards adoption of security technologies that are less efficient. However, what stands out more in the process is that the manner in which a user receives social signals from its peers decides the extent to which social influence can be successful in changing a user's behavior.

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Social Influences in Sequential Decision Making

Cited by 28 publications

References 29 publications

Lay perspectives on social distancing and other official recommendations and regulations in the time of COVID-19: a qualitative study of social media posts

Lay perspectives on social distancing and other official recommendations and regulations in the time of COVID-19: a qualitative study of social media posts

Lay perspectives on social distancing and other official recommendations and regulations in the time of COVID-19: a qualitative study of social media posts

Can social influence be exploited to compromise security

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