Fake News Detection in Aging During the Era of Infodemic

Increasing misinformation spread, including news about COVID-19, poses a threat to older adults but there is little empirical research on this population within the fake news literature. Embedded in the Changes in Integration for Social Decisions in Aging (CISDA) model, this study examined the role of (i) analytical reasoning; (ii) affect; and (iii) news consumption frequency, and their interplay with (iv) news content, in determining fake news detection in aging during the COVID-19 pandemic. Young (age range 18-35 years, M = 20.24, SD = 1.88) and older (age range 61-87 years, M = 70.51, SD = 5.88) adults were randomly assigned to view COVID or non-COVID news articles, followed by measures of analytical reasoning, affect, and news consumption frequency. Comparable across young and older adults, fake news detection accuracy was higher for news unrelated to COVID, and non-COVID fake news detection was predicted by individual differences in analytic reasoning. Examination of chronological age effects further revealed that detection of fake news among older adults aged over 70 years depended on interactions between individual CISDA components and news content. Collectively, these findings suggest that age-related susceptibility to fake news may only be apparent in later stages of older adulthood, but vulnerabilities are context dependent. Our findings advance understanding of psychological mechanisms in fake news evaluation and empirically support CISDA in its application to fake news detection in aging.

Rationality and reasonableness are central tenets of folk theories of sound judgment

We explore folk theories of sound judgment across two cultures, with a particular focus on the distinction between rationality and reasonableness and how people apply these concepts in a range of social and non-social contexts. Four studies using English-speaking samples in North America (Studies 1-3; N=1,826) and a Mandarin-speaking sample in China (Study 4; N=659) examine spontaneous descriptions of characteristics of sound judgment, preferences for and perception of agents in different social contexts (varying in demands for rule-based vs. holistic approaches to decision-making), and categorization of non-social objects. People spontaneously considered both rationality and reasonableness as central features of sound judgment and yet assigned unique attributes to these standards when mapping concept networks. In experiments, people favored rational agents for contexts demanding analytic reasoning and reasonable agents for contexts demanding interpretive/holistic reasoning. Moreover, across cultures, people used rule-based categorization for rational judgment and overall-similarity categorization for reasonable judgment of non-social objects.

Improving Analytic Reasoning via Crowdsourcing and Structured Analytic Techniques

How might analytic reasoning in intelligence reports be substantially improved? One conjecture is that this can be achieved through a combination of crowdsourcing and structured analytic techniques (SATs). To explore this conjecture, we developed a new crowdsourcing platform supporting groups in collaborative reasoning and intelligence report drafting using a novel SAT we call “Contending Analyses.” In this paper we present findings from a large study designed to assess whether groups of professional analysts working on the platform produce better-reasoned reports than those analysts produce when using methods and tools normally used in their organizations. Secondary questions were whether professional analysts working on the platform produce better reasoning than the general public working on the platform; and how usable the platform is. Our main finding is a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.37) in favor of working on platform. This provides early support for the general conjecture. We discuss limitations of our study, implications for intelligence organizations, and future directions for the work as a whole.

T70. DUAL-PROCESS THEORY, CONFLICT PROCESSING, AND DELUSIONAL BELIEF

Background Individuals endorsing delusions exhibit multiple reasoning biases, including a bias toward lower decision thresholds, a bias toward gathering less data before forming conclusions, and a bias toward discounting evidence against one’s beliefs. Although these biases have been repeatedly associated with delusions, it remains unclear how they might arise, how they might be interrelated, and whether any of them play a causal role in forming or maintaining delusions. Progress toward answering these questions may be made by examining delusion-related reasoning biases from the perspective of dual-process theories of reasoning. Dual-process theories posit that human reasoning proceeds via two systems: an intuitive system (which is autonomous, does not require working memory) and an analytic system (which relies on working memory, supports hypothetical thought). Importantly, when the outputs of one or both systems conflict with one another, successful detection of this conflict is thought to produce additional engagement in analytic reasoning. Thus, the detection of and ensuing neurocognitive response to conflict may modulate analytic reasoning engagement. Working from this dual-process perspective, recent theories have hypothesized that more limited engagement in analytic reasoning, perhaps resulting from conflict processing deficits, may engender delusion-inspiring reasoning biases in people with schizophrenia. Methods Given this hypothesis, a literature review (Bronstein et al., 2019, Clinical Psychology Review, 72, 101748) was conducted to critically evaluate whether impaired conflict processing might be a primary initiating deficit in pathways relevant to the generation of delusion-relevant reasoning biases and the formation and/or maintenance of delusions themselves. Results Research examined in this review suggested that in healthy people, successful conflict detection raises decision thresholds. Conflict-processing deficits in delusional individuals with schizophrenia might impair this process. Consistent with this possibility, delusional individuals with schizophrenia (vs. healthy controls) make more decisions when they perceive their favored choice to be only marginally better than alternatives. Lower decision thresholds in individuals who endorse delusions may limit analytic thinking (which takes time). Reductions in decision-making thresholds and in analytic reasoning engagement may encourage these individuals to jump to conclusions, potentially promoting delusion formation, and may also increase bias against disconfirmatory evidence, which may help delusions persist. Discussion Extant literature suggests that conflict processing deficits might encourage delusion-related cognitive biases, which is broadly consistent with the idea that these deficits may be causally primary in pathways leading to delusions. This conclusion lends credence to previous theories suggesting that reduced modulation toward analytic reasoning in the presence of conflict might promote delusions. Future research should attempt to more specifically determine the source of deficits related to analytic reasoning engagement in delusional individuals with schizophrenia. It is often unclear whether analytic-reasoning-related deficits observed in existing literature result from impairments in conflict detection, responsiveness to conflict, or both. Tasks used to study dual-process reasoning in the general population may be useful platforms for specifying the nature of analytic-reasoning-related deficits in delusional individuals with schizophrenia.

T114. THE CAUSAL DYNAMICS OF PARANOIA IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA: A THEORY DRIVEN NETWORK ANALYSIS

Background A cognitive account identifies six key psychological maintenance factors for persecutory delusions. However, a complex system of causation is likely where these factors interact in their influence on paranoid ideas. We set out to evaluate the causal dynamics of paranoia with theory-driven network approaches. Methods 1809 patients with non-affective psychosis attending UK mental health services completed assessments of paranoia, hallucinations, insomnia, self-esteem, worry, anxious avoidance, analytic reasoning, and psychological well-being. To assess causal patterns, we estimated, first, an undirected partial correlation network and then, second, adopted a Bayesian approach with Directed Acyclic Graphs to discover the directed causal pathways best supported by the data. Results The networks showed that with all other variables controlled, paranoia had direct causal interactions with hallucinations, negative self-beliefs, insomnia, worry, and avoidance. Hallucinations and negative self-beliefs were most directly linked to paranoia, whereas indirect paths had prominent influences on the causal effects for insomnia, worry, and avoidance. The direction of these interactions was uncertain, but negative self-beliefs and insomnia were more likely to influence paranoia than vice versa. Self-report reasoning was likely unrelated to paranoia once other factors were controlled. Causal factors were highly interconnected, with insomnia, negative self-beliefs, avoidance, and worry most directly linked to other variables. Most interactions were likely reciprocal, except for hallucinations which were unlikely to influence other variables and significantly caused by insomnia and avoidance. Discussion The findings are consistent with a complex system of interacting causation in the maintenance of paranoia. The patterns observed support the cognitive model of persecutory delusions, highlighting multiple pathways of causal interaction between paranoia and theoretically important factors. Interventions directly targeting these factors are likely to lead to multiple benefits, alleviating paranoia both directly and indirectly through connections with other causally related symptoms.