Politics, Personality, and Poor Decision-Making? Assessing Psychological Variables' Impact on Changing False Knowledge
Location
CSU 201
Start Date
10-4-2018 11:05 AM
End Date
10-4-2018 12:05 PM
Student's Major
Psychology
Student's College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Mentor's Name
Karla Lassonde
Mentor's Department
Psychology
Mentor's College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Description
With the rising accessibility, and distribution of news through different media sources, the ability to discern factual from fake information becomes crucial. A theory called conceptual change has been widely used to design methods to revise misconceptions. Conceptual change theory asserts that learning depends on abandoning prior knowledge and experiencing dissonance that comes with being incorrect. Thus, a person has to realize their knowledge is incorrect to incorporate new, correct information. A similar approach has been employed for addressing misconceptions on social or political issues with little success. The term “backfire effect” has been used to name the process in which people, in the face of factual evidence, double down on their beliefs. Research indicates that when facts challenge our personal beliefs or moral values then we tend to discredit them as counterfactual, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. In this study we examine how political beliefs, the personality trait open-mindedness, and need for cognition interact with refutation text that are designed to correct false knowledge. The first stage of this study focuses on assessing beliefs. In the second, experimental stage, we present a series of passages about common misconceptions with half of them being shown a refutation and explanation that the misconceptions is untrue and half with no refutation or explanation. We hypothesize that individuals who are found to be more politically extreme in their views, less open-minded, and have little desire to think deeply will be less likely to correct misconceptions when reading refutation texts.
Politics, Personality, and Poor Decision-Making? Assessing Psychological Variables' Impact on Changing False Knowledge
CSU 201
With the rising accessibility, and distribution of news through different media sources, the ability to discern factual from fake information becomes crucial. A theory called conceptual change has been widely used to design methods to revise misconceptions. Conceptual change theory asserts that learning depends on abandoning prior knowledge and experiencing dissonance that comes with being incorrect. Thus, a person has to realize their knowledge is incorrect to incorporate new, correct information. A similar approach has been employed for addressing misconceptions on social or political issues with little success. The term “backfire effect” has been used to name the process in which people, in the face of factual evidence, double down on their beliefs. Research indicates that when facts challenge our personal beliefs or moral values then we tend to discredit them as counterfactual, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. In this study we examine how political beliefs, the personality trait open-mindedness, and need for cognition interact with refutation text that are designed to correct false knowledge. The first stage of this study focuses on assessing beliefs. In the second, experimental stage, we present a series of passages about common misconceptions with half of them being shown a refutation and explanation that the misconceptions is untrue and half with no refutation or explanation. We hypothesize that individuals who are found to be more politically extreme in their views, less open-minded, and have little desire to think deeply will be less likely to correct misconceptions when reading refutation texts.
Recommended Citation
Arriaza, Steven; Sungjin Kim; and Isabella Cock-Villafane. "Politics, Personality, and Poor Decision-Making? Assessing Psychological Variables' Impact on Changing False Knowledge." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 10, 2018.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2018/oral-session-05/3
