News Sources, Partisanship, and Political Knowledge in COVID-19 Beliefs

This study analyzed data from a Pew survey (N = 5,681) to see how party identification, political knowledge, and use of different news sources related to two beliefs about COVID-19 promoted on the right early in the pandemic: that the virus was created in a laboratory and that a vaccine for it would be available within a few months. Republicans were more likely to hold these beliefs. The more that people used news outlets with right-leaning audiences, the more likely they were to hold those two beliefs. The more they used news with left-leaning audiences, the less likely they were to believe the virus was laboratory made, a relationship stronger among Democrats. Political knowledge appeared to discourage believing the virus was laboratory-made, again more so among Democrats. However, the more that Democrats (but not Republicans) used news with bipartisan audiences, the more likely they were to believe the virus was laboratory made. Similarly, the more that Democrats (but not Republicans) used social media for news, the more they believed a vaccine would be available soon, and right-leaning news use had a stronger relationship with the early vaccine belief among Democrats. © 2023 SAGE Publications.

The Big Lie: Expressive Responding and Misperceptions in the United States

Misinformation about events surrounding the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic pose an existential threat to American democracy and public health. Public opinion surveys reveal that high percentages of Republicans indicate that they endorse some aspects of mistaken beliefs surrounding election fraud in the 2020 election. Still, understanding how to measure the endorsement of misperceptions is critical for understanding the threat at hand. Are high levels of mistaken beliefs genuinely held, or are they partially a function of expressive responding? I address this question through a set of survey experiments encouraging accuracy-oriented processing among the general public. Using well-powered surveys of Republicans and Independents, I find that treatments designed to encourage more accurate responses are ineffective in reducing the endorsement of partisan electoral and public health misperceptions and can in some cases even backfire. These findings suggest that support for these misperceptions is genuinely held.

False beliefs and "healthy" skepticism: Understanding the multilevel and enduring challenges of misinformation

This dissertation is a study about how people make (mis)informed decisions in the contemporary media environment where there are growing concerns over misinformation, structural inequalities, and the power of platforms. This dissertation addresses two major questions. First, how do beliefs in misinformation develop as a function of multilevel mechanisms, not only as a result of individual identities, preferences, and media diets, but also as a result of mass media structures that impose contextual influences beyond individual choices? Second, how do we foster "healthy" skepticism that helps citizens detect misinformation on social media platforms, while avoiding perpetuating a contentious understanding of fake news that often leads to anti-democratic outcomes? Through four empirical studies, I use quasi-experiment, computational classification of social media and news texts, scale construction, and panel survey experiment to uncover the multilevel and enduring challenges of misinformation. In PART 1 (Chapter 1 & 2), I demonstrate that disparities in local newspaper context across communities uniquely influence people's beliefs about COVID-19 and politics. When living in a community without a local newspaper, people are less certain about and more likely to underestimate COVID-19 prevalence in their community, which in turn are associated with less social distancing. Further, lacking a local newspaper in one's community amplifies partisan selective exposure and makes it more likely for both Democrats and Republicans to believe in false claims made by national in-party elites. Turning from formation of misinformation beliefs to strategies to mitigate misinformation, In PART 2 (Chapter 3 & 4), I show that concerns over social media misinformation are frequently politicized in mainstream broadcast TV news and in Twitter and Facebook utterances. I contend that not all skepticism leads to a better-informed citizenry and theorize two types of skepticism towards social media misinformation: accuracy- vs. identity-motivated skepticism. I reveal that while accuracy-motivated skepticism decreases people's susceptibility to partisanship-congruent misinformation they later encounter, identity-motivated skepticism fuels biases in believing in congruent misinformation and makes content moderation by social media platforms less effective. Together, these findings seek to advance theory-building that deepens our understanding of how individuals, communities, and societies face the challenges brought by misinformation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

COVID-19 Vaccine Misperceptions in a Community Sample of Adults Aged 18-49 Years in Australia.

Central to a successful population vaccination program is high uptake of vaccines. However, COVID-19 vaccine uptake may be impeded by beliefs based on misinformation. We sought to understand the prevalence and nature of misbeliefs about COVID-19 vaccines, and identify associated factors, shortly after commencement of Australia's national vaccine rollout. A cross-sectional survey was administered to unvaccinated young adults (n = 2050) in Australia aged 18-49 years (mean age 33 years), 13 July-21 August 2021. This sample was previously under-represented in COVID-19 research but shown to have less willingness to vaccinate. Two thirds of participants agreed with at least one misbelief item. Misperceptions about COVID-19 vaccines were found to be significantly associated with lower health literacy, less knowledge about vaccines, lower perceived personal risk of COVID-19, greater endorsement of conspiracy beliefs, and lower confidence and trust in government and scientific institutions. Misbeliefs were more common in participants with less educational attainment, in younger age groups, and in males, as per previous research. Understanding determinants and barriers to vaccination uptake, such as knowledge and beliefs based on misinformation, can help to shape effective public health communication and inform debunking efforts at this critical time and in the future.

Inequality and Misperceptions of Group Concerns Threaten the Integrity and Societal Impact of Science

Racial and ethnic minority and lower-income groups are disproportionately affected by environmental hazards and suffer worse health outcomes than other groups in the United States. Relative to whites and higher-income groups, racial-ethnic minority and lower-income Americans also frequently express greater concern about high-profile global environmental threats like climate change, but they are widely misperceived as being less concerned about these issues than white and higher-income Americans. We use new survey research to explore public perceptions of COVID-19—another global threat marked by substantial racial, ethnic, and class disparities—finding a distinct pattern of misperceptions regarding groups’ concerns. We then discuss how these misperceptions represent a unique form of social misinformation that may pose a threat to science and undermine the cooperation and trust needed to address collective problems.

The Role of Social Media in Covid-19

The current narrative review aimed to evaluate the effects and role of social media in the covid-19 pandemic. The examinations show that web-based media have been utilized to share perspectives, medical care, and social distancing during the Covid-19 emergency. However, social media networks have also been used in spreading bogus information to the general public during the Covid-19 pandemic. Along these lines, utilizing web-based media can be an important method for experts and governments to forestall the spread of this virus. The paper contributes in many ways like offering opportunity and remediation on the negative effects of social media during covid-19 such as the spread of misinformation to the general public. In addition, the paper explores the enhancement of public health practitioners’ reliance on social media as a tool for appropriate information dissemination, as well as assisting media personnel in understanding the gravity of the situation and the barriers to effective communication of public health messages. © 2022, Social Medicine Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Do Managers Overreact When in Backlog? Evidence of Scope Neglect from a Supply Chain Experiment

Problem definition: We empirically examine a complementary behavioral source of the bullwhip effect that has been previously overlooked in the literature: that individuals order more aggressively (i.e., overreact) when they face shortages than when they hold inventory. Methodology/Results: We conduct a behavioral experiment using the beer distribution game. We estimate decision rules using multilevel modeling approaches that overcome several drawbacks of the estimation methods used in the earlier literature. We find robust evidence that, contrary to the overreaction when in backlog hypothesis and reports from popular press, decision makers order less aggressively and become insensitive to the scope of the problem when in backlog-a scope neglect phenomenon. Managerial implications: We propose a dual-process theoretical account predicated on affective reactions to explain this scope neglect. Our results suggest that affective reactions under novel operating conditions or dramatic events in supply chains, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can overwhelm cognitive processing of managers and make them fail to recognize the full scope of the problems faced and update decision models accordingly. Understanding the cognitive-affective drivers of ordering behaviors that generate supply chain instability is important in designing interventions to mitigate their negative effects.

Incidental news exposure and COVID-19 misperceptions: A moderated-mediation model

On a regular day, individuals can consume news and information on purpose as well as accidently. Incidental news exposure (INE) can be critical for an informed citizenry, but individuals can also encounter misinformation and disinformation accidently. Misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic has made headlines, and such fake information continues to circulate on social media. We examine the link between INE and misperceptions, as well as investigate the role of a literacy-related variable, self-perceived media literacy (SPML), which may mitigate the impact of INE on misperceptions. To that end, we use survey data to examine 1) the relationship between INE with general misperceptions and COVID-19 misperceptions, 2) the mediating role of general misperceptions between INE and COVID-19 misperceptions, and 3) the moderating role of SPML in this relationship. Our results demonstrated a significant moderated mediation model, in which the association between INE and COVID-19 misperceptions was mediated through general misperceptions, and this relationship was further moderated by SPML. Specifically, among those with higher levels of SPML, the indirect effect of INE on COVID-19 misperceptions was lower compared to those with lower levels of SPML. Our findings have critical implications for INE as well as misinformation research.