When (Fake) News Feels True
Ciarán Mc Mahon in Psychological Insights for Understanding COVID-19 and Media and Technology, 2020
To assess the likely truth of a claim, people also consider whether others believe it – if many people agree, there’s probably something to it. This social consensus (Festinger, 1954) criterion is central to many social influence processes and is sometimes referred to as the principle of “social proof” (Cialdini, 2009). As numerous studies indicated, people are more confident in their beliefs if they are shared by others (Newcomb, 1943; Visser & Mirabile, 2004), more likely to endorse a message if many others have done so as well (Cialdini, 2009), and place more trust in what they remember if others remember it similarly (Harris & Hahn, 2009; Ross, Buehler, & Karr, 1998). Conversely, perceiving dissent reliably undermines message acceptance, which makes reports on real or fabricated controversies an efficient strategy for swaying public opinion (Lewandowsky, Ecker, Seifert, Schwarz, & Cook, 2012; Lewandowsky, Gignac, & Vaughan, 2013). To assess the extent of consensus, people may consult public opinion polls or ask their friends. Alternatively, they may rely on how “familiar” the belief feels – after all, one should have encountered popular beliefs, shared by many, more frequently than unpopular beliefs, held by few. Empirically, familiar information is easier to read, understand, and remember than unfamiliar information, which makes ease of processing a (fallible) indicator of familiarity and popularity. Accordingly, incidental changes in ease of processing can influence perceived consensus.
Evaluating Samples when Researchers Generalize
Fred Pyrczak, Maria Tcherni-Buzzeo in Evaluating Research in Academic Journals, 2018
Responding to a public opinion poll usually takes little time and may be of interest to many participants, thus making it easier for the researchers to reach a large sample size. Other types of studies, however, may be of less interest to potential participants and/or may require extensive effort on the part of participants. In addition, certain data collection methods (such as individual interviews) may require expenditure of considerable resources by researchers. Under such circumstances, it may be unrealistic to expect a researcher to use large samples. Thus, a consumer of research should ask whether the researchers used a reasonable number given the particular circumstances of their study. Would it have been an unreasonable burden to use substantially more participants? Is the number of participants so low that there is little hope of making sound generalizations? Would it be reasonable to base an important decision on the results of the study given the number of participants used? Subjective answers to these types of questions will guide consumers of research on this evaluation question.30
What is the reality in Australia?
Gillies Alan in What Makes a Good Healthcare System?, 2018
During the early months of the campaign, public opinion polls showed significant support for the scheme. The questions were of the form ‘The Government proposes to introduce an Australia Card to address the problems of tax evasion, welfare fraud and immigration. Are you in favour of such a card?’. The fact that some 25–30% of the samples said no to this heavily biased question may reflect considerable cynicism in the community about Government power.
Abortion vs. Sexual Assault: People’s Perceptions of Kavanaugh’s Nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2022
Kristen N. Jozkowski, Ronna C. Turner, James Weese, Wen-Juo Lo, Brandon L. Crawford
There are a few possible explanations for these findings. First, there may be a recency effect in that the sexual assault allegations came to light later in the confirmation process and thus may have been more salient to people taking the survey than Kavanaugh’s position on abortion. Given the quick pace of media news cycles, people may have been more fixated on sexual assault than abortion at the time our survey was administered, because the news of these allegations was more recent. The content and timing of when certain public opinion polls were fielded lend support to this explanation. According to a Roper search for public opinion questions fielded during Kavanaugh’s nomination and confirmation, abortion-related questions were fielded in July/August of 2018, whereas the sexual assault questions were fielded starting in September/October 2018, suggesting the focus shifted from abortion to sexual assault.
Sexual practices and risk behaviors of Israeli adult heterosexual men
Published in AIDS Care, 2020
Individuals in this study were chosen from an existing Israeli panel of 77,000 persons aged 15–85 years. This online omnibus opinion poll panel is maintained to respond to a variety of topics and its members are identified using an interactive selection algorithm. A random sample was selected from the fraction of Jewish panel members aged 18–44 years, as they are more likely to be exposed to HIV and in accordance with the age group used for publication by the Statistical Abstract of Israel. The sample reflected sex, age, geographic district, and religiosity of the general Jewish population in Israel, based on figures from the (Appendix). For the purpose of this study, only male participants’ answers were used. Those who have not performed vaginal or anal sex were excluded from the study. Arabs, orthodox Jews, and other minority panelists were also excluded, as they comprised less than 20% of the Israeli population, thus their participation required a much larger study sample (Mor & Davidovich, 2016a; Mor & Davidovich, 2016b). The research was approved by the institutional review board of the E. Wolfson Medical Center.
What’s Under the Regalia? An Examination of Campus Concealed Weapon Carrying Behavior and Attitudes toward Policies
Published in Journal of School Violence, 2021
Brittany E. Hayes, Ráchael A. Powers, Eryn Nicole O’Neal
Public opinion polls of American adults have identified political beliefs and affiliations as the strongest, most consistent predictors of gun control preferences (Wozniak, 2017). Conservative political initiatives typically advocate for the relaxing of gun control policies while liberal political initiatives emphasize restricting access to firearms (Wilson, 2007). Among college students in particular, extant research routinely finds that conservative/Republican respondents have more favorable views toward loosening gun control policies than their more liberal counterparts (Bouffard et al., 2012; Jang et al., 2014; Schildkraut, Jennings et al., 2018b; Thompson et al., 2013). These findings are expected considering conservative agendas typically support Second Amendment rights and, as a result, constituents would be more likely to support policies associated with preserving such rights (Jang et al., 2014). Support and attitudes aside, research also finds that individuals who identify as conservative are more likely to own a firearm than individuals who identify as liberal (Celinska, 2007).
Related Knowledge Centers
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