Exposure to social bots amplifies perceptual biases and regulation propensity.

Automated accounts on social media that impersonate real users, often called "social bots," have received a great deal of attention from academia and the public. Here we present experiments designed to investigate public perceptions and policy preferences about social bots, in particular how they are affected by exposure to bots. We find that before exposure, participants have some biases: they tend to overestimate the prevalence of bots and see others as more vulnerable to bot influence than themselves. These biases are amplified after bot exposure. Furthermore, exposure tends to impair judgment of bot-recognition self-efficacy and increase propensity toward stricter bot-regulation policies among participants. Decreased self-efficacy and increased perceptions of bot influence on others are significantly associated with these policy preference changes. We discuss the relationship between perceptions about social bots and growing dissatisfaction with the polluted social media environment.

It takes guts to be a rebel! A dynamic coordination account of the relationship between motivational reactivity, social morality, and political ideology.

This study tests two sets of competing hypotheses about the relationship between trait reactivity to positive and negative stimuli (i.e., motivational reactivity), moral stances on social principles (i.e., social morality), and political ideology. The classic view contends that a specific political ideology or social morality results from a specific motivational reactivity pattern, whereas the dynamic coordination account suggests that trait motivational reactivity modulates an individual's political ideology and social morality as a result of the majority political beliefs in their immediate social context. A survey using subjects recruited from a liberal-leaning social context was conducted to test these hypotheses. Results support the dynamic coordination account. Reactivity to negativity (indexed by defensive system activation scores) is associated with the adoption of the dominant social morality and political ideology. Reactivity to positivity (indexed by appetitive system activation scores) is associated with the adoption of nondominant social moral and political stances.

Sociodemographics and Transdiagnostic Mental Health Symptoms in SOCIAL (Studies of Online Cohorts for Internalizing Symptoms and Language) I and II: Cross-sectional Survey and Botometer Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Internalizing, externalizing, and somatoform disorders are the most common and disabling forms of psychopathology. Our understanding of these clinical problems is limited by a reliance on self-report along with research using small samples. Social media has emerged as an exciting channel for collecting a large sample of longitudinal data from individuals to study psychopathology. OBJECTIVE: This study reported the results of 2 large ongoing studies in which we collected data from Twitter and self-reported clinical screening scales, the Studies of Online Cohorts for Internalizing Symptoms and Language (SOCIAL) I and II. METHODS: The participants were a sample of Twitter-using adults (SOCIAL I: N=1123) targeted to be nationally representative in terms of age, sex assigned at birth, race, and ethnicity, as well as a sample of college students in the Midwest (SOCIAL II: N=1988), of which 61.78% (1228/1988) were Twitter users. For all participants who were Twitter users, we asked for access to their Twitter handle, which we analyzed using Botometer, which rates the likelihood of an account belonging to a bot. We divided participants into 4 groups: Twitter users who did not give us their handle or gave us invalid handles (invalid), those who denied being Twitter users (no Twitter, only available for SOCIAL II), Twitter users who gave their handles but whose accounts had high bot scores (bot-like), and Twitter users who provided their handles and had low bot scores (valid). We explored whether there were significant differences among these groups in terms of their sociodemographic features, clinical symptoms, and aspects of social media use (ie, platforms used and time). RESULTS: In SOCIAL I, most individuals were classified as valid (580/1123, 51.65%), and a few were deemed bot-like (190/1123, 16.91%). A total of 31.43% (353/1123) gave no handle or gave an invalid handle (eg, entered "N/A"). In SOCIAL II, many individuals were not Twitter users (760/1988, 38.23%). Of the Twitter users in SOCIAL II (1228/1988, 61.78%), most were classified as either invalid (515/1228, 41.94%) or valid (484/1228, 39.41%), with a smaller fraction deemed bot-like (229/1228, 18.65%). Participants reported high rates of mental health diagnoses as well as high levels of symptoms, especially in SOCIAL II. In general, the differences between individuals who provided or did not provide their social media handles were small and not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Triangulating passively acquired social media data and self-reported questionnaires offers new possibilities for large-scale assessment and evaluation of vulnerability to mental disorders. The propensity of participants to share social media handles is likely not a source of sample bias in subsequent social media analytics.

Black Lives Matter protests shift public discourse.

SignificanceThis study uses large-scale news media and social media data to show that nationwide Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests occur concurrently with sharp increases in public attention to components of the BLM agenda. We also show that attention to BLM and related concepts is not limited to these brief periods of protest but is sustained after protest has ceased. This suggests that protest events incited a change in public awareness of BLM's vision of social change and the dissemination of antiracist ideas into popular discourse.

Pornography Use, Two Forms of Dehumanization, and Sexual Aggression: Attitudes vs. Behaviors.

Sexual objectification is a common pornographic theme. Research shows that sexual objectification leads to the expression of aggressive attitudes and behaviors toward women. Based on a survey study of 320 male participants, this study re-conceptualizes sexual objectification in terms of two forms of dehumanization. Evidence suggests men's pornography use is positively associated with both forms, but mechanistic dehumanization of women is more associated with aggressive attitudes while animalistic dehumanization is more associated with aggressive behaviors. Findings indicate how objectifying pornography use may relate to aggressive attitudes and behaviors and inform the future education campaigns and interventions to reduce sexual aggression.