Applied Psychology II

Science deniers and scientific-consensus advocates’ positions repeatedly are presented in a balanced fashion in mass media. This false balance increases the spread of misinformation under the guise of objectivity. Weight-of-evidence strategies are an alternative to this, in which journalists lend weight to each position equivalent to the amount of evidence that supports it. In public discussions, journalists can do this by inviting more advocates of scientific consensuses than science deniers (i.e., outnumbering) or they can use warnings about the false-balance effect prior to the discussion (i.e., forewarning). In three preregistered laboratory experiments, we tested the efficacy of outnumbering and forewarning as weight-of-evidence strategies to mitigate science deniers’ influence. We further explored whether advocates’ responses to science deniers (rebuttal) and the audience’s issue involvement moderate these strategies’ efficacy. A total of N = 887 individuals indicated their attitudes towards vaccination and their intention to vaccinate before and after watching a TV discussion. The presence and absence of forewarning, outnumbering and rebuttal were manipulated between subjects; participants also indicated their individual issue involvement. We found no evidence that outnumbering mitigated damage from denialism, not even when advocates served as multiple sources. However, forewarning about the false-balance effect mitigated deniers’ negative effect. Moreover, the protective effect was independent of rebuttal and issue involvement. Thus, forewarnings can serve as an effective, economic and theory-driven strategy to counter science denialism.

Social media have become important for minorities to share tolerance-promoting messages via the internet. Videos aiming to improve intergroup attitudes are widespread. But despite their popularity and advantage of being highly scalable as anti-prejudice interventions, there is a lack of research examining if and how such media-based interventions are effective. Therefore, this preregistered study evaluated the effectiveness of a YouTube-campaign video (Estatal LGTB, 2015) that used vicarious contact to improve attitudes towards gay men. Participants (N = 274 heterosexual adults, Mage = 42, SDage = 16, 53% employees, 55% women) were randomly allocated to a control-group design (campaign vs. control video). Whereas the campaign video (n = 125) presents a gay couple asking by-passers to translate an email that confronted them with anti-gay discrimination, in the control condition (n = 149) the same video was presented muted with alternative subtitles about two brothers facing corruption. As pre-registered the campaign video improved heterosexuals’ explicit and implicit attitudes (IAT) towards gay men. Further, the video improved explicit attitudes via (a) inducing outgroup empathy with the gay protagonists and (b) via evoking perspective taking with the ingroup protagonists. However, neither perspective taking nor empathy with ingroup or outgroup protagonists explained the improved implicit attitudes, suggesting other working mechanisms that should be examined in future research.

The effect of touchscreen usage on the perception of contents we consume has rarely been addressed in research. Within a series of three experiments (total sample size of 247 participants) we tested how touchscreen usage compared to other input devices, e.g. mouse or keyboard, influences attitude change, as well as basic stimulus evaluation. Study 1 tested the effect of touchscreen usage on attitude change. Participants were asked to rank-order a set of arguments either using a touchscreen or a mouse. We expected touchscreen usage to increase the impact of the arguments leading to a higher attitude change. However, our results did not find any differences between the devices. Study 2 and 3 both focused on the effect of touchscreen usage on general stimulus evaluation, concerning perceived psychological ownership as well as valence ratings. Study 2 used a set of adjectives as material, whereas study 3 used pictures. We expected to find higher levels of psychological ownership as well as a more positive evaluation of the stimuli when a touchscreen was used compared to the other input devices (mouse and keyboard). The results of both studies indicated that the device used to carry out the task was not of importance. In conclusion, the usage of touch-interfaces does not seem to significantly affect the overall perception of stimuli compared to other input devices like a mouse or keyboard. All three experiments were pre-registered.

We presented pen-and-paper questionnaires containing fake news items on crimes to a sample of young (M = 21.3 years, N = 281) and older adults (M = 70.7 years, N = 508) living in Norway. The origin of the perpetrator (Scandinavian vs immigrant) was varied in a between-Ss design. Participants evaluated on scales perceived credibility of each of the news items, their willingness to share them (face-to-face, online) and their emotions associated with the content of the articles (fear, anger, sadness, worry). They were asked about their political orientation, media use and trust in different types of media (newspapers, TV, radio, Internet). Participants’ propensity to engage in analytic reasoning was measured by the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) and their emotional reactivity by the Perth Emotional Reactivity Scale – Short Form (PERS-S). Participants with a more negative attitude to refugees tended to feel emotional about, trust and share articles with an immigrant perpetrator and distrust articles with a Scandinavian perpetrator. In turn, participants with a more positive attitude to refugees showed the opposite pattern of results. Older adults trusted fake news items more than young adults did. Trust in fake news was positively associated with scores in the PERS-S and with trust in media in general.

Different determinants of truth judgments have been identified by previous research such as the reliability of the information’s source, repeated exposure of the information, or the information’s presentation format. Although these variables typically concur in real-world settings, most studies examined them in isolation. To address this issue, we conducted two experiments that explored joint effects in a simulated social media news context. Experiment 1 investigated effects of news source (reliable source vs. unreliable source vs. no source information), repeated statement exposure (yes vs. no), and news presentation format (with vs. without a non-probative picture) on truth judgments. We found strong and independent effects of news source and statement repetition on perceived truth, but no significant effect of presentation format. Experiment 2 aimed at exploring the role of news source (reliable source vs. unreliable source) and statement exposure (verbatim repetition vs. incoherent repetition vs. no repetition) in further detail. Again, we found strong and additive effects of news source and statement exposure. That is, verbatim repetition increased perceived truth whereas incoherent repetition decreased perceived truth, irrespectively of whether the information was presented by reliable or unreliable sources. Our findings demonstrate that people do not rely on a single judgment cue but integrate source information and meta-cognitive feelings to evaluate a statement’s truth.