RESUMEN
Complex datasets provide opportunities for discoveries beyond their initial scope. Effective and rapid data sharing and management practices are crucial to realize this potential; however, they are harder to implement than post-publication access. Here, we introduce the concept of a "data sharing trust" to maximize the value of large datasets.
Asunto(s)
Conducta Cooperativa , Difusión de la Información , Modelos Teóricos , Confianza , Autoria , Humanos , InvestigadoresRESUMEN
Considerable scholarly attention has been paid to understanding belief in online misinformation1,2, with a particular focus on social networks. However, the dominant role of search engines in the information environment remains underexplored, even though the use of online search to evaluate the veracity of information is a central component of media literacy interventions3-5. Although conventional wisdom suggests that searching online when evaluating misinformation would reduce belief in it, there is little empirical evidence to evaluate this claim. Here, across five experiments, we present consistent evidence that online search to evaluate the truthfulness of false news articles actually increases the probability of believing them. To shed light on this relationship, we combine survey data with digital trace data collected using a custom browser extension. We find that the search effect is concentrated among individuals for whom search engines return lower-quality information. Our results indicate that those who search online to evaluate misinformation risk falling into data voids, or informational spaces in which there is corroborating evidence from low-quality sources. We also find consistent evidence that searching online to evaluate news increases belief in true news from low-quality sources, but inconsistent evidence that it increases belief in true news from mainstream sources. Our findings highlight the need for media literacy programmes to ground their recommendations in empirically tested strategies and for search engines to invest in solutions to the challenges identified here.
Asunto(s)
Desinformación , Probabilidad , Motor de Búsqueda , Confianza , Humanos , Redes Sociales en Línea , Opinión Pública , Motor de Búsqueda/estadística & datos numéricos , Medios de Comunicación Sociales/estadística & datos numéricosRESUMEN
We talk to Devin Schweppe about setting up his group at the University of Washington, studying quantitative-mass-spectrometry-based proteomics (a field that is constantly evolving), overcoming self-doubt, going with your gut when hiring, and how he hopes to build an environment of excellence, inclusion, and trust and always encourage his lab members to keep asking "why?"
Asunto(s)
Selección de Personal , Confianza , Masculino , Humanos , Espectrometría de Masas , ProteómicaRESUMEN
Financial incentives to encourage healthy and prosocial behaviours often trigger initial behavioural change1-11, but a large academic literature warns against using them12-16. Critics warn that financial incentives can crowd out prosocial motivations and reduce perceived safety and trust, thereby reducing healthy behaviours when no payments are offered and eroding morals more generally17-24. Here we report findings from a large-scale, pre-registered study in Sweden that causally measures the unintended consequences of offering financial incentives for taking the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. We use a unique combination of random exposure to financial incentives, population-wide administrative vaccination records and rich survey data. We find no negative consequences of financial incentives; we can reject even small negative impacts of offering financial incentives on future vaccination uptake, morals, trust and perceived safety. In a complementary study, we find that informing US residents about the existence of state incentive programmes also has no negative consequences. Our findings inform not only the academic debate on financial incentives for behaviour change but also policy-makers who consider using financial incentives to change behaviour.
Asunto(s)
Vacunas contra la COVID-19 , COVID-19 , Conductas Relacionadas con la Salud , Motivación , Vacunación , Humanos , COVID-19/prevención & control , COVID-19/psicología , Vacunas contra la COVID-19/economía , Conductas Relacionadas con la Salud/ética , Seguridad del Paciente , Suecia , Confianza , Estados Unidos , Vacunación/economía , Vacunación/ética , Vacunación/psicología , Recolección de DatosRESUMEN
How people recall the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is likely to prove crucial in future societal debates on pandemic preparedness and appropriate political action. Beyond simple forgetting, previous research suggests that recall may be distorted by strong motivations and anchoring perceptions on the current situation1-6. Here, using 4 studies across 11 countries (total n = 10,776), we show that recall of perceived risk, trust in institutions and protective behaviours depended strongly on current evaluations. Although both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals were affected by this bias, people who identified strongly with their vaccination status-whether vaccinated or unvaccinated-tended to exhibit greater and, notably, opposite distortions of recall. Biased recall was not reduced by providing information about common recall errors or small monetary incentives for accurate recall, but was partially reduced by high incentives. Thus, it seems that motivation and identity influence the direction in which the recall of the past is distorted. Biased recall was further related to the evaluation of past political action and future behavioural intent, including adhering to regulations during a future pandemic or punishing politicians and scientists. Together, the findings indicate that historical narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic are motivationally biased, sustain societal polarization and affect preparation for future pandemics. Consequently, future measures must look beyond immediate public-health implications to the longer-term consequences for societal cohesion and trust.
Asunto(s)
Actitud Frente a la Salud , COVID-19 , Recuerdo Mental , Motivación , Pandemias , Prejuicio , Salud Pública , Humanos , COVID-19/epidemiología , Pandemias/prevención & control , SARS-CoV-2 , Riesgo , Vacunas contra la COVID-19 , Vacunación/estadística & datos numéricos , Salud Pública/métodos , Salud Pública/tendencias , Política de Salud , Confianza , Prejuicio/psicología , Política , Opinión Pública , Planificación en Desastres/métodos , Planificación en Desastres/tendenciasRESUMEN
The reluctance of people to get vaccinated represents a fundamental challenge to containing the spread of deadly infectious diseases1,2, including COVID-19. Identifying misperceptions that can fuel vaccine hesitancy and creating effective communication strategies to overcome them are a global public health priority3-5. Medical doctors are a trusted source of advice about vaccinations6, but media reports may create an inaccurate impression that vaccine controversy is prevalent among doctors, even when a broad consensus exists7,8. Here we show that public misperceptions about the views of doctors on the COVID-19 vaccines are widespread, and correcting them increases vaccine uptake. We implement a survey among 9,650 doctors in the Czech Republic and find that 90% of doctors trust the vaccines. Next, we show that 90% of respondents in a nationally representative sample (n = 2,101) underestimate doctors' trust; the most common belief is that only 50% of doctors trust the vaccines. Finally, we integrate randomized provision of information about the true views held by doctors into a longitudinal data collection that regularly monitors vaccination status over 9 months. The treatment recalibrates beliefs and leads to a persistent increase in vaccine uptake. The approach demonstrated in this paper shows how the engagement of professional medical associations, with their unparalleled capacity to elicit individual views of doctors on a large scale, can help to create a cheap, scalable intervention that has lasting positive impacts on health behaviour.
Asunto(s)
Vacunas contra la COVID-19 , COVID-19 , Consenso , Educación en Salud , Conocimientos, Actitudes y Práctica en Salud , Médicos , Vacunación , COVID-19/prevención & control , Vacunas contra la COVID-19/administración & dosificación , República Checa , Conductas Relacionadas con la Salud , Humanos , Salud Pública , Opinión Pública , Sociedades Médicas , Encuestas y Cuestionarios , Confianza , Vacunación/estadística & datos numéricos , Vacilación a la Vacunación/psicología , Vacilación a la Vacunación/estadística & datos numéricosRESUMEN
Plenty of awards recognize scientific contributions, but a unique and important one honors those whose efforts significantly enhance the quality and robustness of research. We discuss why this is important to promote trust in science.
Asunto(s)
Distinciones y Premios , ConfianzaRESUMEN
In recent years, there has been a great deal of concern about the proliferation of false and misleading news on social media1-4. Academics and practitioners alike have asked why people share such misinformation, and sought solutions to reduce the sharing of misinformation5-7. Here, we attempt to address both of these questions. First, we find that the veracity of headlines has little effect on sharing intentions, despite having a large effect on judgments of accuracy. This dissociation suggests that sharing does not necessarily indicate belief. Nonetheless, most participants say it is important to share only accurate news. To shed light on this apparent contradiction, we carried out four survey experiments and a field experiment on Twitter; the results show that subtly shifting attention to accuracy increases the quality of news that people subsequently share. Together with additional computational analyses, these findings indicate that people often share misinformation because their attention is focused on factors other than accuracy-and therefore they fail to implement a strongly held preference for accurate sharing. Our results challenge the popular claim that people value partisanship over accuracy8,9, and provide evidence for scalable attention-based interventions that social media platforms could easily implement to counter misinformation online.
Asunto(s)
Atención , Desinformación , Difusión de la Información , Internet/normas , Juicio , Humanos , Difusión de la Información/ética , Política , Medios de Comunicación Sociales/normas , Encuestas y Cuestionarios , ConfianzaRESUMEN
We administer a Turing test to AI chatbots. We examine how chatbots behave in a suite of classic behavioral games that are designed to elicit characteristics such as trust, fairness, risk-aversion, cooperation, etc., as well as how they respond to a traditional Big-5 psychological survey that measures personality traits. ChatGPT-4 exhibits behavioral and personality traits that are statistically indistinguishable from a random human from tens of thousands of human subjects from more than 50 countries. Chatbots also modify their behavior based on previous experience and contexts "as if" they were learning from the interactions and change their behavior in response to different framings of the same strategic situation. Their behaviors are often distinct from average and modal human behaviors, in which case they tend to behave on the more altruistic and cooperative end of the distribution. We estimate that they act as if they are maximizing an average of their own and partner's payoffs.
Asunto(s)
Inteligencia Artificial , Conducta , Humanos , Altruismo , ConfianzaRESUMEN
Human cognitive capacities that enable flexible cooperation may have evolved in parallel with the expansion of frontoparietal cortical networks, particularly the default network. Conversely, human antisocial behavior and trait antagonism are broadly associated with reduced activity, impaired connectivity, and altered structure of the default network. Yet, behaviors like interpersonal manipulation and exploitation may require intact or even superior social cognition. Using a reinforcement learning model of decision-making on a modified trust game, we examined how individuals adjusted their cooperation rate based on a counterpart's cooperation and social reputation. We observed that learning signals in the default network updated the predicted utility of cooperation or defection and scaled with reciprocal cooperation. These signals were weaker in callous (vs. compassionate) individuals but stronger in those who were more exploitative (vs. honest and humble). Further, they accounted for associations between exploitativeness, callousness, and reciprocal cooperation. Separately, behavioral sensitivity to prior reputation was reduced in callous but not exploitative individuals and selectively scaled with responses of the medial temporal subsystem of the default network. Overall, callousness was characterized by blunted behavioral and default network sensitivity to cooperation incentives. Exploitativeness predicted heightened sensitivity to others' cooperation but not social reputation. We speculate that both compassion and exploitativeness may reflect cognitive adaptations to social living, enabled by expansion of the default network in anthropogenesis.
Asunto(s)
Conducta Cooperativa , Humanos , Masculino , Femenino , Adulto , Motivación/fisiología , Toma de Decisiones/fisiología , Confianza/psicología , Adulto Joven , Red Nerviosa/fisiología , Empatía/fisiología , Encéfalo/fisiología , Encéfalo/diagnóstico por imagenRESUMEN
Data on the perceptions of scientists suggest a moderate public distrust of scientist's motivations. Bettridge et al. suggest scientist's reluctance to engage the public on controversial ethical issues may be a contributing factor. The authors propose a Scientist's Oath to send a clear message to the public about our ideals.
Asunto(s)
Personal de Laboratorio/ética , Códigos de Ética , Ética en Investigación , Humanos , Investigación , ConfianzaRESUMEN
Mass elections are key mechanisms for collective decision-making. But they are also blamed for creating intergroup enmity, particularly while they are underway; politicians use polarizing campaign strategies, and losing sides feel resentful and marginalized after results are announced. I investigate the impact of election proximity-that is, closeness to elections in time-on social cleavages related to religion, a salient form of group identity worldwide. Integrating data from â¼1.2 million respondents across 25 cross-country survey series, I find no evidence that people interviewed shortly before or after national elections are more likely to express negative attitudes toward religious outgroups than those interviewed at other times. Subgroup analysis reveals little heterogeneity, including by levels of political competition. Generalized social trust, too, is unaffected by election calendars. Elections may not pose as great a risk to social cohesion as is commonly feared.
Asunto(s)
Política , Confianza , Humanos , Emociones , Estado de Salud , ReligiónRESUMEN
Social navigation-such as anticipating where gossip may spread, or identifying which acquaintances can help land a job-relies on knowing how people are connected within their larger social communities. Problematically, for most social networks, the space of possible relationships is too vast to observe and memorize. Indeed, people's knowledge of these social relations is well known to be biased and error-prone. Here, we reveal that these biased representations reflect a fundamental computation that abstracts over individual relationships to enable principled inferences about unseen relationships. We propose a theory of network representation that explains how people learn inferential cognitive maps of social relations from direct observation, what kinds of knowledge structures emerge as a consequence, and why it can be beneficial to encode systematic biases into social cognitive maps. Leveraging simulations, laboratory experiments, and "field data" from a real-world network, we find that people abstract observations of direct relations (e.g., friends) into inferences of multistep relations (e.g., friends-of-friends). This multistep abstraction mechanism enables people to discover and represent complex social network structure, affording adaptive inferences across a variety of contexts, including friendship, trust, and advice-giving. Moreover, this multistep abstraction mechanism unifies a variety of otherwise puzzling empirical observations about social behavior. Our proposal generalizes the theory of cognitive maps to the fundamental computational problem of social inference, presenting a powerful framework for understanding the workings of a predictive mind operating within a complex social world.
Asunto(s)
Cognición , Conducta Social , Humanos , Aprendizaje , Amigos/psicología , ConfianzaRESUMEN
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the importance of health literacy and trust in pandemic management. Collaborating with the community to prepare for pandemics is incredibly effective in fostering understanding and building trust in public health and scientific research.