scholarly journals The inverse relation between risks and benefits: The impact of individual differences in information processing style

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0255569
Author(s):  
Patrycja Sleboda ◽  
Carl Johan Lagerkvist

Existing research shows that evaluations of the risks and benefits of various hazards (i.e., technologies and activities) are inversely related. The affect heuristic explains the negative relation between risks and benefits, as based on the strength of positive or negative affect associated with a hazard. Research on the affect heuristic previously investigated under which conditions people judge risk and benefits independently, focusing on expertise as a factor that might exempt from inversely related judgements of risk and benefits. Measurements within Dual Process Theories have been found to be associated with rational, analytical decision making and accurate judgments. In this paper we investigated the extent to which rational information processing styles can predict the risk-benefit relation of technologies in a medical and food applications and whether the attitudes influence the strength or direction of the relationship. Using the Need for Cognition Scale (NFC), a psychometric-based risk scale and an explicit measure of attitude, in a representative sample of 3228 Swedes, we found that the high NFC group judged the risks and benefits of technologies to be inversely related. In contrast, the low NFC group judged the risks and benefits to be positively related. These results were confirmed across all studied technologies by applying moderation analysis. We discuss the results in light of recent research on cognitive processing and polarization over technologies’ risks.

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
GISELA GRANENA

ABSTRACTRecent proposals on language aptitude have distinguished between cognitive aptitudes for implicit and explicit learning (e.g., Doughty et al., 2010; Linck et al., 2013). This methodological study extends recent work on aptitude by investigating whether aptitudes for implicit and explicit learning are differentially related to the two main information-processing cognitive styles proposed by dual-process theories in cognitive psychology: rational–analytical and experiential–intuitive (Pacini & Epstein, 1999). A relationship was found between a rational–analytical profile and explicit aptitude, as well as between an experiential–intuitive profile and implicit aptitude. Structural equation modeling further showed that the proposed model had acceptable fit. These results were interpreted as support for the qualitatively different types of cognitive processes underlying the two hypothesized types of aptitude.


SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824402096280
Author(s):  
Maysam Shirzadifard ◽  
Ehsan Shahghasemi ◽  
Elaheh Hejazi ◽  
Shima Aminipour

This study investigates the mediating role of life management strategies to see how information processing styles indirectly influence subjective well-being. Participants were 440 university students (female = 202, male = 238) ranging in age from 18 to 50 years from all levels and all majors from universities in Quchan, Iran. In a nonexperimental design and by using path analysis, we found that selection, optimization, and compensation fully mediated the relationship between information processing styles and subjective well-being. Our proposed model fitted well to the data and could account for a significant proportion of variance in satisfaction with life, positive affects, and negative affects’ scores (42%, 51%, and 35%, respectively). These results provide empirical evidence that rational information processing style is a defining factor for planning, and its impact on subjective indicators of well-being operates indirectly and through life management strategies. This model, with a more active approach, has implications for both theory and practice in psychotherapy.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Sütterlin ◽  
Torvald F. Ask ◽  
Sophia Mägerle ◽  
Sandra Glöckler ◽  
Leandra Wolf ◽  
...  

AI-generated “deep fakes” are becoming increasingly professional and can be expected to become an essential tool for cybercriminals conducting targeted and tailored social engineering attacks, as well as for others aiming for influencing public opinion in a more general sense. While the technological arms race is resulting in increasingly efficient forensic detection tools, these are unlikely to be in place and applied by common users on an everyday basis any time soon, especially if social engineering attacks are camouflaged as unsuspicious conversations. To date, most cybercriminals do not yet have the necessary resources, competencies or the required raw material featuring the target to produce perfect impersonifications. To raise awareness and efficiently train individuals in recognizing the most widespread deep fakes, the understanding of what may cause individual differences in the ability to recognize them can be central. Previous research suggested a close relationship between political attitudes and top-down perceptual and subsequent cognitive processing styles. In this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of political attitudes and agreement with the political message content on the individual’s deep fake recognition skills.In this study, 163 adults (72 females = 44.2%) judged a series of video clips with politicians’ statements across the political spectrum regarding their authenticity and their agreement with the message that was transported. Half of the presented videos were fabricated via lip-sync technology. In addition to the particular agreement to each statement made, more global political attitudes towards social and economic topics were assessed via the Social and Economic Conservatism Scale (SECS).Data analysis revealed robust negative associations between participants’ general and in particular social conservatism and their ability to recognize fabricated videos. This effect was pronounced where there was a specific agreement with the message content. Deep fakes watched on mobile phones and tablets were considerably less likely to be recognized as such compared to when watched on stationary computers.To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate and establish the association between political attitudes and interindividual differences in deep fake recognition. The study further supports very recently published research suggesting relationships between conservatism and perceived credibility of conspiracy theories and fake news in general. Implications for further research on psychological mechanisms underlying this effect are discussed.


Author(s):  
Bernard Grofman

There are many aspects to understanding the effects of persuasion, including the role of factors such as emotions, biases in cognitive processing, and context effects. This chapter, however, is limited to what it labels as “reasoned persuasion,” which we may think of as the “reasoned response” half of dual-process theories of persuasion. The chapter examines the role of beliefs and values primarily from a Bayesian perspective. It presents theoretical expectations derived from this perspective in terms of twenty-five propositions, with particular attention to the updating of beliefs based on new information received and on how persuasion ultimately affects behavior. Because these propositions follow logically from the key idea that choices are primarily, but not exclusively, a function of beliefs and values, these propositions have been labeled as “laws.”


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekta Srivastava ◽  
Satish S. Maheswarappa ◽  
Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the affective outcome of ambivalent nostalgia through use of executional variables, develop a framework linking nostalgia (through affect) and consumers’ cognitive processing, and explain the relationship of nostalgia with self-brand connection (SBC) and willingness to pay a premium (WTPP) through a mediator, cognitive processing. Design/methodology/approach This research is based on two experiments. In study 1, students were shown a nostalgic ad paired with a vignette to manipulate “past–present contrast.” In study 2, positive and negative moods were induced and an informative nostalgic ad was shown to measure processing styles and SBC and WTPP; this was followed by mediation analysis. Findings The findings are as follows: first, “Past–present contrast” can reduce the negative affect in nostalgia, making it less ambivalent; second, positive (negative) affect leads to top-down (bottom-up) processing; third, SBC and WTPP are higher when top-down processing is used; and, fourth, processing style is a mediator between affect and SBC/WTPP. Practical implications Managers may use the “good past, good present” scenario to mitigate negative affect in nostalgia. Nostalgic ads may be used by brands that want consumers to pay a price premium, have a strong SBC and when they want consumers to use top-down processing. Originality/value This paper demonstrates how to reduce ambivalence and associate brands with positive affect in nostalgia, and gain SBC and WTPP; the mediating role of cognitive processing in the relationship of nostalgia with SBC and WTPP is delineated.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fayçal Boukamcha

Purpose This paper aims to clarify the effect of attitudinal ambivalence on resistance to anti-smoking persuasion through information processing styles. It was hypothesized that a high smoker’s ambivalence, induced by an anti-smoking persuasive message, triggers among smokers both a reflective and a non-reflective information processing. In turn, both the information processing styles were supposed to be predictors of the resistance to anti-smoking persuasion. Design/methodology/approach An experiment and a survey were conducted on a random sample of 347 smokers in this regard. Findings The findings indicated that smokers feel ambivalent toward anti-smoking messages in print ads and tend to process them both analytically and superficially. Also, it seems that only the analytical processing triggers resistance to anti-smoking persuasion. Originality/value The author reports on the importance of attitudinal ambivalence and information processing in the resistance to anti-smoking persuasion process. The paper should be of interest to readers in the areas of health communication and social marketing. This work seems to be important to the extent that few works have highlighted the causal and linear effect of a persuasive anti-smoking message on smokers’ ambivalence, information processing and resistance to persuasion. The findings in this paper seem interesting insofar, as they show the importance of the negative emotional appeal in the ambivalence, analytical information processing and resistance triggering.


2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda M. Isbell ◽  
Elicia C. Lair ◽  
Daniel R. Rovenpor

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843022098560
Author(s):  
Young-Jae Yoon ◽  
James R. Larson ◽  
Jeffrey R. Huntsinger

Positive and negative affect are often thought to influence the quality of group decision-making by prompting different cognitive processing styles: a less effortful heuristic style in the case of positive affect, and a more detail-oriented systematic style in the case of negative affect, with the latter yielding better group decisions than the former. By contrast, we argue that rather than prompting a specific cognitive processing style, positive affect encourages the maintenance of whatever style is currently in use, while negative affect encourages a change in style. Consequently, both positive and negative affect can result in either better or worse group decisions, depending on which cognitive processing style was at play just prior to the affect’s arousal. To test this idea, we conducted three experiments, and found that when heuristic processing was initially primed, subsequently inducing a sad mood resulted in better decisions by both individuals and groups than did subsequently inducing a happy mood. The reverse occurred when systematic processing was initially primed. In groups, these effects were mediated by the relative focus, during group discussion, on critical decision-relevant information. Implications of these findings and future directions for research are discussed.


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