The present research examined the relationship between political ideology and perceptions of the threat of COVID-19. Due to Republican leadership’s initial downplaying of COVID-19 and the resulting ...partisan media coverage, we predicted that conservatives would perceive it as less threatening. Two preregistered online studies supported this prediction. Conservatism was associated with perceiving less personal vulnerability to the virus and the virus’s severity as lower, and stronger endorsement of the beliefs that the media had exaggerated the virus’s impact and that the spread of the virus was a conspiracy. Conservatism also predicted less accurate discernment between real and fake COVID-19 headlines and fewer accurate responses to COVID-19 knowledge questions. Path analyses suggested that presidential approval, knowledge about COVID-19, and news discernment mediated the relationship between ideology and perceived vulnerability. These results suggest that the relationship between political ideology and threat perceptions may depend on issue framing by political leadership and media.
We report four experiments that investigate explicit reasoning and moral judgements. In each experiment, some subjects responded to the “footbridge” version of the trolley problem (which elicits ...stronger moral intuitions), whereas others responded to the “switch” version (which elicits weaker moral intuitions). Experiments 1–2 crossed the type of trolley problem with four reasoning conditions: control, counter-attitudinal, pro-attitudinal, and mixed reasoning (both types of reasoning). Experiments 3–4 examine whether moral judgements vary based on (a) when reasoners engage in counter-attitudinal reasoning, (b) when they make the moral judgement, and (c) by the type of moral dilemma. These two experiments comprised five conditions: control (judgement only), delay-only (2-minute wait then judgement), reasoning-only (reasoning then judgement), reasoning-delay (reasoning, then 2-minute delay, then judgement), and delayed-reasoning (2-minute delay, then reasoning, then judgement). These conditions were crossed with the type of trolley problem. We find that engaging in some form of counter-attitudinal reasoning led to less typical judgements (regardless of when it occurs), but this effect was mostly restricted to the switch version of the dilemma (and was strongest in the reasoning-delay conditions). Furthermore, neither pro-attitudinal reasoning nor delayed judgements on their own impacted subjects’ judgements. Reasoners therefore seem open to modifying their moral judgements when they consider opposing perspectives but might be less likely to do so for dilemmas that elicit relatively strong moral intuitions.
With the imminent advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) comes a moral dilemma: How do people assign responsibility in the event of a fatal accident? AVs necessarily create conditions in which “drivers” ...yield agency to a machine. The current study examines how people make attributions of blame and praise in this context. Varying the features of AV technology affected how responsible a “driver” (who purchased the vehicle) is perceived to be following a deadly crash. The findings provide support for agency and commission as crucial bases of moral judgment. They also raise questions about how morally contradictory actions are perceived and underscore the need for research examining how moral responsibility is distributed among multiple potentially culpable agents. Pragmatically, these findings suggest that regulating (or declining to regulate) how AVs are programmed may strongly influence perceptions of moral and legal culpability.
As autonomous technology emerges, new variations in old questions arise. When autonomous technologies cause harm, who is to blame? The current studies compare reactions toward harms caused by ...human-controlled vehicles (HCVs) or human soldiers (HSs) to identical harms by autonomous vehicles (AVs) or autonomous robot soldiers. Drivers of HCVs, or HSs, were blamed more than mere users of AVs or HSs who outsourced their duties to ARSs. However, as human drivers/soldiers became less involved in (or were unaware of the preprogramming that led to) the harm, blame was redirected toward other entities (i.e., manufacturers and the tech company's executives), showing the opposite pattern as human drivers/soldiers. Results were robust to how blame was measured (i.e., degrees of blame versus apportionment of total blame). Overall, this research furthers the blame literature, raising questions about why, how (much), and to whom blame is assigned when multiple agents are potentially culpable.
To the extent that people feel more continuity between their present and future selves, they are more likely to make decisions with the future self in mind. The current studies examined future ...self-continuity in the context of health. In Study 1, people reported the extent to which they felt similar and connected to their future self; people with more present-future continuity reported having better subjective health across a variety of measures. In Study 2, people were randomly assigned to write a letter to themselves either three months or 20 years into the future; people for whom continuity with the distant future self was enhanced exercised more in the days following the writing task. These findings suggest that future self-continuity promotes adaptive long-term health behavior, suggesting the promise of interventions enhancing future self-continuity.
The current paper explores the effects of providing people with schema training at the outset of learning (compared to at later stages) on mathematical word problems modeled after problems from the ...Graduate Record Examination. Additionally, the ratio of worked examples to problem-solving practice was manipulated. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions and were tested on near and far transfer problems. Participants provided schema training at the outset of learning outperformed those provided schema training after problem-solving practice, particularly on far transfer problems. Likewise, participants provided with a higher ratio of worked examples to problem-solving practice demonstrated better performance during testing than those provided with more problem-solving practice and fewer worked examples. These findings extend the worked example effect to far transfer problems and suggest that providing schema training prior to learning solution strategies may be effective in improving mathematical problem solving.
Fake news is a serious problem because it misinforms people about important issues. The present study examined belief in false headlines about election fraud after the 2020 U.S. presidential ...election. Belief in election fraud had dangerous consequences, including the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. In the present study, participants rated the truthfulness of true and false headlines about the election, and then completed individual difference measures eight days after the election. Participants with more conservative ideology, greater presidential approval of the outgoing president, greater endorsement of general conspiracy narratives and poorer cognitive reflection demonstrated greater belief in false headlines about election fraud. Additionally, consuming more politically conservative election news was associated with greater belief in false headlines. Identifying the factors related to susceptibility to false claims of election fraud offers a path toward countering the influence of these claims by tailoring interventions aimed at decreasing belief in misinformation and decreasing conspiracy beliefs to those most susceptible.
Personality and misinformation Calvillo, Dustin P; León, Alex; Rutchick, Abraham M
Current opinion in psychology,
02/2024, Letnik:
55
Journal Article
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Misinformation poses a significant concern, promoting false beliefs and eroding trust in media. People differ in their susceptibility to believe and to share misinformation. In this article, we ...reviewed recent research on relationships between personality traits and belief in and sharing of misinformation. Findings show that more extroverted and less conscientious and agreeable people tend to be more susceptible to believing in and sharing misinformation. Additionally, the Dark Triad personality traits of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism tend to be positively associated with sharing of misinformation, and narcissism and psychopathy are associated with greater belief in misinformation. Understanding these individual differences can inform interventions to reduce the effects of misinformation.
Voting is perceived as free and rational. Citizens make whatever choices they wish, shielded from external influences by the privacy of the voting booth. The current paper, however, suggests that a ...subtle source of influence—polling places themselves—can impact voting behavior. In two elections, people voting in churches were more likely to support a conservative candidate and a ban on same-sex marriage, but not the restriction of eminent domain. A field experiment found that people completing questionnaires in a chapel awarded less money (relative to people in a secular building) to insurance claimants seeking compensation for abortion pills, but not to worker's compensation claimants. A laboratory experiment found that people subliminally exposed to ecclesiastical images awarded less money (relative to people exposed to control images) to abortion pill claimants, but not to worker's compensation claimants. Exposure to ecclesiastical images affected only Christians; non-Christians' awards were unaffected by the prime. These findings show that polling locations can exert a powerful and precise influence on political attitudes and decision making.
Pain contributes to health care costs, missed work and school, and lower quality of life. Extant research on psychological interventions for pain has focused primarily on developing skills that ...individuals can apply to manage their pain. Rather than examining internal factors that influence pain tolerance (e.g., pain management skills), the current work examines factors external to an individual that can increase pain tolerance. Specifically, the current study examined the nonconscious influence of exposure to meaningful objects on the perception of pain. Participants (N = 54) completed a cold pressor test, examined either ibuprofen or a control object, then completed another cold pressor test. In the second test, participants who previously examined ibuprofen reported experiencing less intense pain and tolerated immersion longer (relative to baseline) than those who examined the control object. Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed.
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