Meta-analytic evidence suggests that verbal patterns of emotion betray deceit, but it is presently unclear whether the location of maximum emotion in lies and truths matters to reveal deception. We ...contribute to the deception literature by offering analyses at the sentence level to locate where emotion is most pronounced in deceptive versus truthful texts. Using two public data sets—news articles (Study 1) and hotel reviews (Study 2)—we found that maximum emotion occurs toward the beginning of deceptive texts while maximum emotion appears later for truthful texts. In addition to demonstrating the effect across diverse settings, we used two different measurements for emotion and separated the results by valence, replicating the maximum emotion effect each time. The predictive nature of maximum affect ranged from 54% to 56% across data sets, a rate consistent with most deception studies using 50-50 lie–truth base rates. Implications for future research and deception theory are discussed.
In two large-scale longitudinal datasets (combined N = 5761), we investigated ability-related political polarization in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We observed more polarization with greater ...ability in emotional responses, risk perceptions, and product-purchase intentions across five waves of data collection with a diverse, convenience sample from February 2020 through July 2020 (Study 1, N = 1267). Specifically, more liberal participants had more negative emotional responses and greater risk perceptions of COVID-19 than conservative participants. Compared to conservatives, liberal participants also interpreted quantitative information as indicating higher COVID-19 risk and sought COVID-related news more from liberal than conservative news media. Of key importance, we also compared verbal and numeric cognitive abilities for their independent capacity to predict greater polarization. Although measures of numeric ability, such as objective numeracy, are often used to index ability-related polarization, ideological differences were more pronounced among those higher in verbal ability specifically. Similar results emerged in secondary analysis of risk perceptions in a nationally representative longitudinal dataset (Study 2, N = 4494; emotions and purchase intentions were not included in this dataset). We further confirmed verbal-ability-related polarization findings on non-COVID policy attitudes (i.e., weapons bans and Medicare-for-all) measured cross-sectionally. The present Study 2 documented ability-related polarization emerging over time for the first time (rather than simply measuring polarization in existing beliefs). Both studies demonstrated verbal ability measures as the most robust predictors of ability-related polarization. Together, these results suggest that polarization may be a function of the amount and/or application of verbal knowledge rather than selective application of quantitative reasoning skills.
•People higher in verbal ability had more polarized responses to COVID-19.•Skill with numbers predicted lower risk perceptions, but not polarization.•People higher in verbal ability interpreted information to support beliefs.•People higher in verbal ability were more polarized in media consumption.
Strategies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, namely quarantine and social distancing protocols, have exposed a troubling paradox: mandated isolation meant to preserve well-being has inadvertently ...contributed to its decline. Prolonged isolation has been associated with widespread loneliness and diminished mental health, with effects compounded by limited face-to-face access to clinical and social support systems. While remote communication technologies (e.g., video chat) can connect individuals with healthcare providers and social networks, remote technologies might have limited effectiveness in clinical and social contexts. In this review, we articulate the promise of Virtual Reality as a conduit to clinical resources and social connection. Furthermore, we outline various social and economic factors limiting the virtual reality industry’s ability to maximize its potential to address mental health issues brought upon by the pandemic. These barriers are delineated across five dimensions: sociocultural, content, affordability, supply chain, and equitable design. After examining potential short- and long-term solutions to these hurdles, we outline potential avenues for applied and theoretical research seeking to validate these solutions. Through this evaluation we seek to (a) emphasize virtual reality’s capacity to improve mental health by connecting communities to clinical and social support systems, (b) identify socioeconomic barriers preventing users from accessing these systems through virtual reality, and (c) discuss solutions that ensure these systems can be equitably accessed via changes to existing and future virtual reality infrastructures.
Over 30,000 field experiments with The Washington Post and Upworthy showed that readers prefer simpler headlines (e.g., more common words and more readable writing) over more complex ones. A ...follow-up mechanism experiment showed that readers from the general public paid more attention to, and processed more deeply, the simpler headlines compared to the complex headlines. That is, a signal detection study suggested readers were guided by a simpler-writing heuristic, such that they skipped over relatively complex headlines to focus their attention on the simpler headlines. Notably, a sample of professional writers, including journalists, did not show this pattern, suggesting that those writing the news may read it differently from those consuming it. Simplifying writing can help news outlets compete in the competitive online attention economy, and simple language can make news more approachable to online readers.
News readers engage more with simple writing, suggesting that journalists should write simply to attract attention online.
The social sciences have long relied on comparative work as the foundation upon which we understand the complexities of human behavior and society. However, as we go deeper into the era of artificial ...intelligence (AI), it becomes imperative to move beyond mere comparison (e.g., how AI compares to humans across a range of tasks) to establish a visionary agenda for AI as collaborative partners in the pursuit of knowledge and scientific inquiry. This paper articulates an agenda that envisions AI models as the preeminent scientific collaborators. We advocate for the profound notion that our thinking should evolve to anticipate, and include, AI models as one of the most impactful tools in the social scientist's toolbox, offering assistance and collaboration with low-level tasks (e.g., analysis and interpretation of research findings) and high-level tasks (e.g., the discovery of new academic frontiers) alike. This transformation requires us to imagine AI's possible/probable roles in the research process. We defend the inevitable benefits of AI as knowledge generators and research collaborators—agents who facilitate the scientific journey, aiming to make complex human issues more tractable and comprehensible. We foresee AI tools acting as co-researchers, contributing to research proposals and driving breakthrough discoveries. Ethical considerations are paramount, encompassing democratizing access to AI tools, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, ensuring transparency, fairness, and privacy in AI-driven research, and addressing limitations and biases in large language models. Embracing AI as collaborative partners will revolutionize the landscape of social sciences, enabling innovative, inclusive, and ethically sound research practices.
In four studies, we evaluated how corporate misconduct relates to language patterns, perceptions of immorality, and unethical behavior. First, we analyzed nearly 190 codes of conduct from S&P 500 ...manufacturing companies and observed that corporations with ethics infractions had more linguistically obfuscated codes than corporations without ethics infractions. Next, we tested perceptions of a company based on values statements modified by obfuscation (Study 2). Participants perceived low-obfuscation companies as more moral, warmer, and more trustworthy than high-obfuscation companies. Finally, behavioral experiments (Studies 3a and 3b) revealed that group members cheat more after reading a high-obfuscation values statement than a low-obfuscation values statement. The results provide evidence of a potentially troublesome cycle: corporate unethicality has linguistic traces, can affect how people appraise a company, and can change ethical behavior.
Prior work suggests when instrumental goals are salient, linguistic complexity associates with positive behavioral outcomes compared to linguistic simplicity. The current work tested this idea using ...descriptions from over 1,000 online realty advertisements to associate with housing prices. The evidence suggested linguistic complexity (e.g., fewer common words, more analytic writing, and less readable writing) indeed associated with higher housing prices. These data explicated the contingent-on-effort hypothesis: linguistic complexity is favored when people value effort in a particular setting.
Plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) are innate immune cells that are specialized to produce IFN-α and to activate adaptive immune responses. Although IFN-α inhibits HIV-1 replication in vitro, the production of ...IFN-α by HIV-activated pDCs in vivo may contribute more to HIV pathogenesis than to protection. We have now shown that HIV-stimulated human pDCs allow for persistent IFN-α production upon repeated stimulation, express low levels of maturation molecules, and stimulate weak T cell responses. Persistent IFN-α production by HIV-stimulated pDCs correlated with increased levels of IRF7 and was dependent upon the autocrine IFN-α/β receptor feedback loop. Because it has been shown that early endosomal trafficking of TLR9 agonists causes strong activation of the IFN-α pathway but weak activation of the NF-κB pathway, we sought to investigate whether early endosomal trafficking of HIV, a TLR7 agonist, leads to the IFN-α-producing phenotype we observed. We demonstrated that HIV preferentially traffics to the early endosome in human pDCs and therefore skews pDCs toward a partially matured, persistently IFN-α-secreting phenotype.
Why are there few reliable deception cues and why is deception detection a challenge? These questions are related and have puzzled social scientists, leading to few universal truths about the ...relationship between deception and communication behavior. This article reviews existing theories to suggest how deceptive discourse production actually occurs, which can lead to a better understanding of deception production and detection processes. Crucial components of a deception — lie-truth base-rates, deception expectations, and goals — are largely overlooked in most theories and primary studies, but are integrated in this paper through a deception faucet metaphor. The metaphor describes deceptive discourse production as violations of conversational maxims (Quantity, Quality, Manner, Relation) and reflected by characteristics that change across deceptions. Considerations for theory and application are suggested.
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