scholarly journals Social Psychological Predictors of Belief in Fake News in the Run-Up to the 2019 Hungarian Elections: The Importance of Conspiracy Mentality Supports the Notion of Ideological Symmetry in Fake News Belief

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zea Szebeni ◽  
Jan-Erik Lönnqvist ◽  
Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti
Keyword(s):  
Political Identity ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Need For Closure ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
False Information ◽  
Political News ◽  
The Government ◽  
Group Memberships

Accessing information online is now easier than ever. However, also false information is circulated in increasing quantities. We sought to identify social psychological factors that could explain why some people are more susceptible to false information. Specifically, we investigated whether psychological predispositions (social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, system justification beliefs (SJB), openness, need for closure, conspiracy mentality), competencies (scientific and political knowledge, interest in politics) or motivated reasoning based on social identity (political orientation) could help explain who believes fake news. Hungarian participants (N = 295) judged political (anti- and pro-government) and non-political news. The Hungarian context—characterized by low trust in media, populist communication by the government and increasing polarization—should be fertile ground for the proliferation of fake news. The context in making this case particularly interesting is that the major political fault line in Hungary runs between pro- and anti-government supporter groups and not, for instance, between conservative and liberal ideology or partisanship. We found clear support for the motivational reasoning explanation as political orientation consistently predicted belief in both fake and real political news when their contents aligned with one’s political identity. The belief in pro-government news was also associated with higher SJB among pro-government supporters. Those interested in politics showed better capacity to distinguish real political news from the fake ones. Most importantly, the only psychological predisposition that consistently explained belief in all types of fake news was a conspiracy mentality. This supports the notion of ideological symmetry in fake news belief—where a conspiracy mentality can be found across the political spectrum, and it can make people susceptible to disinformation regardless of group-memberships and other individual differences.

scholarly journals Personality's influence on political orientation extends to concrete stances of political controversy in Germany – Cross-nationally and consistently

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 686-707
Author(s):  
Thomas Grünhage ◽  
Martin Reuter
Keyword(s):  
Political Identity ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Right Wing Authoritarianism ◽  
Five Factors ◽  
Political Controversy

Growing evidence suggests that the general personality structure predisposes the political or ideological orientation. Here, we first replicated findings of associations between Big Five factors openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness, and self-reported political orientation in a large German sample. However, the new aspect of our study is the addition of Wahl-O-Mat (WoM; a prominent voting advice application) as a measure of concrete policy-positions. Here, a score of accordance between a participant’s and the several German parties’ stances on current and relevant policy-issues is computed. Given that political science identifies trends towards a dealignment of voters with political parties and a decreasing significance of socio-structural factors, an issue-based approach to vote choice may become critical in the future. Therefore, we investigated whether personality’s influence on political orientation also extends to stances about specific issues and, thus, is not restricted to self-placements. As expected, WoM-scores also showed meaningful correlations with personality traits: accordance with right-of-center-parties is negatively related to openness and agreeableness and positively related to conscientiousness. Finally, we recruited smaller samples in the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Turkey, Spain, Australia, and Bulgaria and showed that the associations mentioned above are cross-nationally replicable. We conclude that personality influences not only self-perceived political identity but also attitudes towards current issues of political controversy. In both cases, the effects of personality were mediated by Right-Wing-Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation.

scholarly journals Monitoring Impact of Social Dominance Orientation in Bangladeshi Manufacturing Industries

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 251
Author(s):  
Enamul Islam
Keyword(s):  
Social Dominance ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Manufacturing Industries ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Government ◽  
High Level

We see signs of conflict, chaos, confusion, extortion, blockage and street violence in Bangladesh as a regular phenomenon. Often workers are found in the street creating unwanted activities to draw the attention of the Government. The problems of intergroup discrimination are responsible for social inequality. The worker group tries to dominate over the managerial group in most enterprises. In any organisation, psychopathic individual works alone but while expressing criminal activities or destructive activities, they function as a cooperative group. Regardless of the form of creation, or the contents of its fundamental belief system, workers group tend to organise as group-based social hierarchies in which they often dominate another group (managerial group) and enjoy higher social status and power.While scholars of developed nations have a greater interest in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) study, little is known about least developed and developing nations. This quantitative cross-sectional study joins a serious of Social dominance orientation studies intending to explore the structure of the social dominance orientation scale in Bangladeshi manufacturing industries and if workers group has higher labels of social dominance orientation than managerial groups. The researcher found a significant difference between males and females on social dominance orientation at the workplace. Male showed a higher level of social dominance orientation than their female counterparts. Result also shows that members of disadvantaged groups (workers group) have high-level social dominance orientation. Workers group maintain oppression mainly by force and threat not by enjoying social supremacy but by strength and political orientation.

scholarly journals Infodemia, el lado obscuro de la comunicación digital

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 5488-5497
Author(s):  
Sandra Flores Guevara ◽  
Fannia María Cadena Montes ◽  
Ramiro Cadena Uribe
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Redes Sociales ◽  
False Information ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Medios De Comunicacion

El espacio virtual donde se han logrado abrir camino medios de comunicación digitales alternativos, y donde se informa la mayoría de los mexicanos, hoy se encuentra contaminado por el virus de la desinformación y las fake news. La llegada del virus Covid-19 ha sido terreno fértil para la propagación de la infodemia, y una herramienta de la oposición para golpear al gobierno del presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Ante esta epidemia de desinformación, el propósito de este trabajo es visibilizar las consecuencias que tiene la propagación de información falsa en torno al Covid-19, analizando para ello el uso político que se le da a los rumores y fake news que se difunden tanto en redes sociales digitales como en medios de comunicación. Entre los principales halazgos de este estudio de corte cualitativo, se pudieron distinguir algunos medios de comunicación que propician y otros que combaten a la infodemia. Además se observó que la epidemia de información falsa tiene graves consecuencias en la sociedad, con implicaciones que van desde afectaciones a la salud pública, hasta la desacreditación de movimientos sociales genuinos como el femeninismo, o de gobiernos legítimos.     The virtual space where alternative digital media have made their way, and where the majority of Mexicans are informed, is now contaminated by the virus of disinformation and fake news. The arrival of the Covid-19 virus has been fertile ground for the spread of infodemia, and a tool of the opposition to hit the government of the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Given this epidemic of disinformation, the purpose of this paper is to make visible the consequences of the spread of false information about Covid-19, analyzing the political use given to rumors and fake news that are spread both in digital social networks and in the media. Among the main findings of this qualitative study, it was possible to distinguish some media that favor and others that fight infodemia. In addition, it was observed that the epidemic of false information has serious consequences in society, with implications ranging from public health effects to the discrediting of genuine social movements such as feminism, or of legitimate governments.

The national question, identity and the crisis in South Sudan

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dylan Yanano Mangani ◽  
Richard Rachidi Molapo
Keyword(s):  
Political Identity ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Political Control ◽  
Social Patterns ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Liberation Movement ◽  
Nation States ◽  
National Question ◽  
The Government

The crisis in South Sudan that broke out on the 15th of December 2013 has been the gravest political debacle in the five years of the country’s independence. This crisis typifies the general political and social patterns of post-independence politics of nation-states that are borne out of armed struggles in Africa. Not only does the crisis expose a reluctance by the nationalist leaders to continue with nation-building initiatives, the situation suggests the struggle for political control at the echelons of power within the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement.  This struggle has been marred by the manufacturing of political identity and political demonization that seem to illuminate the current political landscape in South Sudan. Be that as it may, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) hurriedly intervened to find a lasting solution however supportive of the government of President Salva Kirr and this has suggested interest based motives on the part of the regional body and has since exacerbated an already fragile situation. As such, this article uses the Fanonian discourse of post-independence politics in Africa to expose the fact that the SPLM has degenerated into lethargy and this is at the heart of the crisis.

Identity concerns drive belief: The impact of partisan identity on the belief and dissemination of true and false news

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Pereira ◽  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel ◽  
Elizabeth Ann Harris
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Social Goals ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
System P ◽  
False News ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
The Impact

Political misinformation, often called “fake news”, represents a threat to our democracies because it impedes citizens from being appropriately informed. Evidence suggests that fake news spreads more rapidly than real news—especially when it contains political content. The present article tests three competing theoretical accounts that have been proposed to explain the rise and spread of political (fake) news: (1) the ideology hypothesis— people prefer news that bolsters their values and worldviews; (2) the confirmation bias hypothesis—people prefer news that fits their pre-existing stereotypical knowledge; and (3) the political identity hypothesis—people prefer news that allows their political in-group to fulfill certain social goals. We conducted three experiments in which American participants read news that concerned behaviors perpetrated by their political in-group or out-group and measured the extent to which they believed the news (Exp. 1, Exp. 2, Exp. 3), and were willing to share the news on social media (Exp. 2 and 3). Results revealed that Democrats and Republicans were both more likely to believe news about the value-upholding behavior of their in-group or the value-undermining behavior of their out-group, supporting a political identity hypothesis. However, although belief was positively correlated with willingness to share on social media in all conditions, we also found that Republicans were more likely to believe and want to share apolitical fake new. We discuss the implications for theoretical explanations of political beliefs and application of these concepts in in polarized political system.

scholarly journals Credibility of Digital Political News in Spain: Comparison between Traditional Media and Social Media

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 170
Author(s):  
Reinald Besalú ◽  
Carles Pont-Sorribes
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Item ◽  
Digital Television ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Political News ◽  
Digital News ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Digital Formats

In the context of the dissemination of fake news and the traditional media outlets’ loss of centrality, the credibility of digital news emerges as a key factor for today’s democracies. The main goal of this paper was to identify the levels of credibility that Spanish citizens assign to political news in the online environment. A national survey (n = 1669) was designed to assess how the news format affected credibility and likelihood of sharing. Four different news formats were assessed, two of them linked to traditional media (digital newspapers and digital television) and two to social media (Facebook and WhatsApp). Four experimental groups assigned a credibility score and a likelihood of sharing score to four different political news items presented in the aforementioned digital formats. The comparison between the mean credibility scores assigned to the same news item presented in different formats showed significant differences among groups, as did the likelihood of sharing the news. News items shown in a traditional media format, especially digital television, were assigned more credibility than news presented in a social media format, and participants were also more likely to share the former, revealing a more cautious attitude towards social media as a source of news.

scholarly journals Intelligent Detection of False Information in Arabic Tweets Utilizing Hybrid Harris Hawks Based Feature Selection and Machine Learning Models

Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 556
Author(s):  
Thaer Thaher ◽  
Mahmoud Saheb ◽  
Hamza Turabieh ◽  
Hamouda Chantar
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Feature Selection ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
User Profile ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Classification Model ◽  
Fake News ◽  
False Information ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Fake or false information on social media platforms is a significant challenge that leads to deliberately misleading users due to the inclusion of rumors, propaganda, or deceptive information about a person, organization, or service. Twitter is one of the most widely used social media platforms, especially in the Arab region, where the number of users is steadily increasing, accompanied by an increase in the rate of fake news. This drew the attention of researchers to provide a safe online environment free of misleading information. This paper aims to propose a smart classification model for the early detection of fake news in Arabic tweets utilizing Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, Machine Learning (ML) models, and Harris Hawks Optimizer (HHO) as a wrapper-based feature selection approach. Arabic Twitter corpus composed of 1862 previously annotated tweets was utilized by this research to assess the efficiency of the proposed model. The Bag of Words (BoW) model is utilized using different term-weighting schemes for feature extraction. Eight well-known learning algorithms are investigated with varying combinations of features, including user-profile, content-based, and words-features. Reported results showed that the Logistic Regression (LR) with Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) model scores the best rank. Moreover, feature selection based on the binary HHO algorithm plays a vital role in reducing dimensionality, thereby enhancing the learning model’s performance for fake news detection. Interestingly, the proposed BHHO-LR model can yield a better enhancement of 5% compared with previous works on the same dataset.

scholarly journals Personality factors and self-reported political news consumption predict susceptibility to political fake news

2021 ◽  
Vol 174 ◽  
pp. 110666
Author(s):  
Dustin P. Calvillo ◽  
Ryan J.B. Garcia ◽  
Kiana Bertrand ◽  
Tommi A. Mayers
Keyword(s):  
Personality Factors ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Political News ◽  
News Consumption

Unraveling the Mystery of Brazilian Jeitinho

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Cristina Ferreira ◽  
Ronald Fischer ◽  
Juliana Barreiros Porto ◽  
Ronaldo Pilati ◽  
Taciano L. Milfont
Keyword(s):  
Social Norm ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Dimensional Structure ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Indigenous Psychology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Problem Solving Strategies ◽  
Functional Components ◽  
Scenario Approach

Two studies explore the structure and psychological makeup of jeitinho, a Brazilian indigenous construct associated with problem-solving strategies in strong hierarchies. Study 1 used a scenario approach with nonstudent participants and demonstrated that jeitinho can be described by a three-dimensional structure: corruption, creativity, and social norm breaking. Study 2 used individual and social norm scenarios in nonstudent samples and demonstrated that moral leniency is associated with more corruption and social norm breaking. Furthermore, only in the personal but not the social norm condition was greater social dominance orientation associated with more corruption and social norm breaking. Jeitinho is not a monolitical construct, but it is a complex sociocultural strategy that has distinct functional components at the personal and normative levels. Theoretical advances in the understanding of social norms and indigenous psychology by examining both culture-specific and general social-psychological processes are outlined.

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