How Americans encounter guns: Mixed methods content analysis of YouTube and internet search data.

Firearm-related injury and death is a serious public health issue in the U.S. As more Americans consume news and media online, there is growing interest in using these channels to prevent firearm-related harms. Understanding the firearm-related narratives to which consumers are exposed is foundational to this work. This research used the browsing behavior of a representative sample of American adults to identify seven firearm-related content "ecosystems" (defined as naturally occurring networks of channels watched by the same users) on YouTube; we then described the demographics and internet search patterns of users affiliated with each ecosystem. Over the 9-month study period, 72,205 panelists had 16,803,075 person-video encounters with 7,274,093 videos. Among these, 282,419 were related to firearms. Using fast greedy clustering, we partitioned users and channel interactions into seven distinct channel-based content ecosystems that reached more than 1/1000 YouTube users per day. These ecosystems were diverse in reach, users, and content (e.g., guns for self-protection, guns for fun). On average, 0.5% of panelists performed a firearm-related internet search on a given day. The vast majority of searches were related to mass shootings or police-involved shootings (e.g., "active shooter"), and virtually none were about more common firearm harm such as suicide. Searches for firearm safety information were most common among panelists affiliated with the "Hunting & Fishing" and "Guns & Gear" ecosystems, which were watched primarily by older, white men. These findings identify an opportunity for analyzing firearm-related narratives and tailoring firearm safety messaging for users affiliated with specific online content ecosystems.

Attentional processes in stereotype formation: a common model for category accentuation and illusory correlation.

Stereotype formation may be based on the exaggeration of real group differences (category accentuation) or the misperception of group differences that do not exist (illusory correlation). This research sought to account for both phenomena with J. K. Kruschke's (1996, 2001, 2003) attention theory of category learning. According to the model, the features of majority groups are learned earlier than the features of minority groups. In turn, the features that become associated with a minority are those that most distinguish it from the majority. This second process is driven by an attention-shifting mechanism that directs attention toward group-attribute pairings that facilitate differentiation of the two groups and may lead to the formation of stronger minority stereotypes. Five experiments supported this model as a common account for category accentuation and distinctiveness-based illusory correlation. Implications for the natures of stereotype formation, illusory correlation, and impression formation are discussed.

Stereotype Strength and Attentional Bias: Preference for Confirming versus Disconfirming Information Depends on Processing Capacity.

In two experiments, we investigated the relationships among stereotype strength, processing capacity, and the allocation of attention to stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information describing a target person. The results of both experiments showed that, with full capacity, greater stereotype strength was associated with increased attention toward stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information. However, when capacity was diminished, greater stereotype strength was associated with increased attention toward inconsistent versus consistent information. Thus, strong stereotypes may act as self-confirming filters when processing capacity is plentiful, but as efficient information gathering devices that maximize the acquisition of novel (disconfirming) information when capacity is depleted. Implications for models of stereotyping and stereotype change are discussed.

Agent-based modeling: a new approach for theory building in social psychology.

Most social and psychological phenomena occur not as the result of isolated decisions by individuals but rather as the result of repeated interactions between multiple individuals over time. Yet the theory-building and modeling techniques most commonly used in social psychology are less than ideal for understanding such dynamic and interactive processes. This article describes an alternative approach to theory building, agent-based modeling (ABM), which involves simulation of large numbers of autonomous agents that interact with each other and with a simulated environment and the observation of emergent patterns from their interactions. The authors believe that the ABM approach is better able than prevailing approaches in the field, variable-based modeling (VBM) techniques such as causal modeling, to capture types of complex, dynamic, interactive processes so important in the social world. The article elaborates several important contrasts between ABM and VBM and offers specific recommendations for learning more and applying the ABM approach.

Situating social influence processes: dynamic, multidirectional flows of influence within social networks.

Social psychologists have studied the psychological processes involved in persuasion, conformity, and other forms of social influence, but they have rarely modeled the ways influence processes play out when multiple sources and multiple targets of influence interact over time. However, workers in other fields from sociology and economics to cognitive science and physics have recognized the importance of social influence and have developed models of influence flow in populations and groups-generally without relying on detailed social psychological findings. This article reviews models of social influence from a number of fields, categorizing them using four conceptual dimensions to delineate the universe of possible models. The goal is to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations to build models that incorporate the detailed, microlevel understanding of influence processes derived from focused laboratory studies but contextualized in ways that recognize how multidirectional, dynamic influences are situated in people's social networks and relationships.

Separating multiple processes in implicit social cognition: the quad model of implicit task performance.

The authors argue that implicit measures of social cognition do not reflect only automatic processes but rather the joint contributions of multiple, qualitatively different processes. The quadruple process model proposed and tested in the present article quantitatively disentangles the influences of 4 distinct processes on implicit task performance: the likelihood that automatic bias is activated by a stimulus; that a correct response can be determined; that automatic bias is overcome; and that, in the absence of other information, a guessing bias drives responses. The stochastic and construct validity of the model is confirmed in 5 studies. The model is shown to provide a more nuanced and detailed understanding of the interplay of multiple processes in implicit task performance, including implicit measures of attitudes, prejudice, and stereotyping.

Prejudice and stereotype maintenance processes: attention, attribution, and individuation.

Three experiments examined the relationship between prejudice and processing of stereotypic information. Higher levels of prejudice were associated with greater attention to and more thorough encoding of stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent behaviors but only when processing capacity was plentiful (Experiments 1 and 3). High-prejudice participants attributed consistent behaviors to internal factors and inconsistent behaviors to external forces (Experiment 2). Together, these results suggest that high-prejudice people attend carefully to inconsistent behaviors to explain them away but only if they have sufficient resources to do so. Results also showed that low-prejudice but not high-prejudice participants formed individuated impressions by integrating the implications of the target's behaviors (i.e., individuating). High levels of prejudice appear to be associated with biased encoding and judgment processes that may serve to maintain stereotypes.