scholarly journals Counterintuitive Pseudoscience Propagates by Exploiting the Mind’s Communication Evaluation Mechanisms

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spencer Mermelstein ◽  
Tamsin C. German
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Information Search ◽  
Functional Outcomes ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Epidemiological Models ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Communication Evaluation

Epidemiological models of culture posit that the prevalence of a belief depends in part on the fit between that belief and intuitions generated by the mind’s reliably developing architecture. Application of such models to pseudoscience suggests that one route via which these beliefs gain widespread appeal stems from their compatibility with these intuitions. For example, anti-vaccination beliefs are readily adopted because they cohere with intuitions about the threat of contagion. However, other varieties of popular pseudoscience such as astrology and parapsychology contain content that violates intuitions held about objects and people. Here, we propose a pathway by which “counterintuitive pseudoscience” may spread and receive endorsement. Drawing on recent empirical evidence, we suggest that counterintuitive pseudoscience triggers the mind’s communication evaluation mechanisms. These mechanisms are hypothesized to quarantine epistemically-suspect information including counterintuitive pseudoscientific concepts. As a consequence, these beliefs may not immediately update conflicting intuitions and may be largely restricted from influencing behavior. Nonetheless, counterintuitive pseudoscientific concepts, when in combination with intuitively appealing content, may differentially draw attention and memory. People may also be motivated to seek further information about these concepts, including by asking others, in an attempt to reconcile them with prior beliefs. This in turn promotes the re-transmission of these ideas. We discuss how, during this information-search, support for counterintuitive pseudoscience may come from deference to apparently authoritative sources, reasoned arguments, and the functional outcomes of these beliefs. Ultimately, these factors promote the cultural success of counterintuitive pseudoscience but explicit endorsement of these concepts may not entail tacit commitment.

scholarly journals How Do People Search Information on Content and Sources? Integrating Source Search in Information Boards

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonie Aßmann ◽  
Holger Futterleib ◽  
Tilmann Betsch ◽  
Eva Thomm ◽  
Johannes Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Information Search ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Source Information ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Educational Domain ◽  
Standard Information ◽  
People Search ◽  
Information Board ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Content Information

Information forms the basis for beliefs, judgements, decision making, and behavior. Nowadays, the amount of information available is continually increasing. Still, the quality and credibility of the corresponding sources vary widely. Thus, to avoid making judgments and decisions on basis of biased information, the credibility of information and sources must be carefully evaluated. However, information regarding the source is often not immediately accessible and, instead, must be purposefully sought. The standard information board paradigm does not include such a source information search. Therefore, we investigated whether that paradigm can be extended with an active search of source information in order to investigate search behaviors with regard to content und source information. To do so, we presented participants with information boards on different topics from two domains (i.e., health and education). The boards contained a question to outline the topic of information search in addition to four related sources. For each source, we provided information on topic-related expertise and potential conflicts of interest as well as content information regarding the question (i.e., pro and contra arguments). Information was hidden so that participants had to actively search the information. We were interested in the search start, search amount, differences in search between the domains and belief revision due to information search. Results show that participants primarily began information search with source expertise before continuing on to content information. In general, both content and source information were searched. Domain did not influence the start but the search amount⎯more information was searched on topics in the educational domain. In addition, search appeared to influence prior beliefs. For some topics, we observed changes in beliefs following information search.The findings indicate that our variations in the information board paradigm can be used to investigate content information search and source information search simultaneously.

Use and Activation of Social Knowledge in Commonsense Attribution, Evidence for a Schema-Based Attribution Model

1991 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 728-730
Author(s):  
Gernot Von Collani ◽  
Astrid Kauer ◽  
Synöwe Kauer
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Analysis Of Variance ◽  
Information Search ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Variance Model

Starting from the principal objections against Kelly's 1973 analysis of variance model an overview of several experiments Ss presented supporting a schema-based attribution model of social knowledge. Empirical evidence obtained so far shows that people classify social situations they are going to explain in terms of 9 basic categories for actions and events, that the information preferred and actively searched preceding an attribution is highly specific to the type of situation in question and is guided by an attribution hypothesis central to the knowledge schema, that information search is confirmatory and truncated, that the attributions made are specific to the type of social situation to be explained, and that explanations central to an attribution schema are cognitively more easily available and may be activated by a priming procedure.

scholarly journals Information search in complex industrial buying: Empirical evidence from Brazil

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Brashear Alejandro ◽  
Christian Kowalkowski ◽  
João Gustavo da Silva Freire Ritter ◽  
Renato Zancan Marchetti ◽  
Paulo Henrique Prado
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Information Search ◽  
Industrial Buying

scholarly journals Iron biofortification interventions to improve iron status and functional outcomes

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (02) ◽  
pp. 197-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia L. Finkelstein ◽  
Amy Fothergill ◽  
Laura S. Hackl ◽  
Jere D. Haas ◽  
Saurabh Mehta
Keyword(s):  
Iron Deficiency ◽  
Functional Outcomes ◽  
Iron Status ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Major Public Health Problem ◽  
Efficacy Trials ◽  
Staple Crops ◽  
Meta Analyses

This analysis was conducted to evaluate the evidence of the efficacy of iron biofortification interventions on iron status and functional outcomes. Iron deficiency is a major public health problem worldwide, with a disproportionate impact on women and young children, particularly those living in resource-limited settings. Biofortification, or the enhancing of micronutrient content in staple crops, is a promising and sustainable agriculture-based approach to improve nutritional status. Previous randomised efficacy trials and meta-analyses have demonstrated that iron-biofortification interventions improved iron biomarkers; however, no systematic reviews to date have examined the efficacy of biofortification interventions on health outcomes. We conducted a systematic review of the efficacy of iron-biofortified staple crops on iron status and functional outcomes: cognitive function (e.g. attention, memory) and physical performance. Five studies from three randomised efficacy trials (i.e. rice, pearl millet, beans) conducted in the Philippines, India and Rwanda were identified for inclusion in this review. Iron status (Hb, serum ferritin, soluble transferrin receptor, total body iron, α-1-acid glycoprotein) was measured at baseline and endline in each trial; two studies reported cognitive outcomes, and no studies reported other functional outcomes. Meta-analyses were conducted using DerSimonian and Laird random-effects methods. Iron-biofortified crop interventions significantly improved cognitive performance in attention and memory domains, compared with conventional crops. There were no significant effects on categorical outcomes such as iron deficiency or anaemia. Further studies are needed to determine the efficacy of iron-biofortified staple crops on human health, including additional functional outcomes and other high-risk populations.

scholarly journals An empirical study on how financial literacy contributes to preparation for retirement

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Tsung-ming Yeh
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Information Search ◽  
Financial Literacy ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Behavioral Biases ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Financial Products

Abstract This study provides empirical evidence on the mechanisms through which financial literacy may be associated with saving for retirement, in the three phases of the decision-making process – information perception, information search and evaluation, and decision-making and implementation. The results indicate that financial literacy has significantly positive effects on one's awareness of post-retirement financial needs, comparing alternatives when purchasing financial products, displaying fewer present-time bias, and planning for and setting aside funds for retirement. Financial literacy not only directly contributes to planning for the future, but also indirectly via a reduction in behavioral biases.

scholarly journals Rethinking the link between cognitive sophistication and politically motivated reasoning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben M Tappin ◽  
Gordon Pennycook ◽  
David Gertler Rand
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Political Group ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Cognitive Sophistication

Partisan disagreement is a salient feature of contemporary American politics. A surprising but robust aspect of this disagreement is that it is often the greatest among individuals who are the most cognitively sophisticated. A popular hypothesis for this phenomenon is that cognitive sophistication magnifies “politically motivated reasoning”—reasoning driven by the motivation to reach conclusions congenial to one’s political group identity. However, in the designs of studies supporting this hypothesis, the effect of political group identity is typically conflated with the effect of specific prior beliefs about the issue under study; and reasoning can be affected by such beliefs in the absence of any political group motivation. The diagnosticity of existing evidence is thus ambiguous. To shed new light on this issue, we conducted three experiments in which we statistically controlled for people’s specific prior beliefs—isolating the direct effect of political group identity—when estimating the association between their cognitive sophistication, political group identity, and reasoning in the paradigmatic design used in the literature. Despite observing a robust direct effect of political group identity (per se) on reasoning, we found no evidence that cognitive sophistication magnifies this effect. In contrast, we found fairly consistent evidence that cognitive sophistication magnifies a direct effect of specific prior beliefs on reasoning. We conclude that there is currently a lack of compelling empirical evidence that cognitive sophistication magnifies politically motivated reasoning as commonly understood.

Challenges to the social motivation theory of autism: The dangers of counteracting an imprecise theory with even more imprecision

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirko Uljarević ◽  
Giacomo Vivanti ◽  
Susan R. Leekam ◽  
Antonio Y. Hardan
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
The Social

Abstract The arguments offered by Jaswal & Akhtar to counter the social motivation theory (SMT) do not appear to be directly related to the SMT tenets and predictions, seem to not be empirically testable, and are inconsistent with empirical evidence. To evaluate the merits and shortcomings of the SMT and identify scientifically testable alternatives, advances are needed on the conceptualization and operationalization of social motivation across diagnostic boundaries.

Integrating perspectives: How the development of second-personal competence lays the foundation for a second-personal morality

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Corbit ◽  
Chris Moore
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Developmental Process ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Personal Competence ◽  
Triadic Interactions ◽  
Personal Morality ◽  
Integrative Process

Abstract The integration of first-, second-, and third-personal information within joint intentional collaboration provides the foundation for broad-based second-personal morality. We offer two additions to this framework: a description of the developmental process through which second-personal competence emerges from early triadic interactions, and empirical evidence that collaboration with a concrete goal may provide an essential focal point for this integrative process.

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