The first article resulting from a collaboration led by my graduate student Miranda Na has been accepted for publication published in the Journal of Health Communication. The article introduces the idea that “emotional congruence” can influence whether or not someone believes an unsubstantiated claim. When the emotions associated with the claim are consistent with the emotions that the individual is already experiencing, belief becomes more likely. The results of the study, which used a simulated health crisis as a test, are consistent with this idea.

This is the first in a series of studies, and it is at the core of Miranda’s dissertation.  Here’s the abstract:

Rumors pose a significant challenge to officials combating a public health crisis. The flow of unsubstantiated and often inaccurate information can dilute the effects of more accurate messaging. Understanding why rumors thrive in this context is a crucial first step to constraining them. We propose a novel mechanism for explaining rumor acceptance during a health crisis, arguing that the congruence between one’s emotional state and the emotion induced by a rumor leads people to believe the rumor. Data collected using a novel experimental design provide preliminary evidence for our emotional congruence hypothesis. Participants who felt angry were more likely to accept anger-inducing rumors than those who were not angry. We discuss the implications of this insight for public health officials combating rumors during a health crisis.

Na, K., Garrett, R. K., & Slater, M. D. (2018). Rumor Acceptance during Public Health Crises: Testing the Emotional Congruence Hypothesis. Journal of Health Communication, 23(8), 791-799. doi: 10.1080/10810730.2018.1527877

Congratulations to Rachel Neo and Dustin Carnahan on their recent publications related to misinformation. Rachel and Dustin both worked with me when they were grad students at OSU, and I’m delighted to see their work getting this well deserved recognition.

Dustin’s paper, “Feeling Fine about Being Wrong: The Influence of Self-Affirmation on the Effectiveness of Corrective Information” (DOI:10.1093/hcr/hqy001) was published in the July issue of Human Communication Research. The paper uses a pair of experiments to demonstrate that self-affirmation can reduce biased responses to corrective information.

Rachel’s paper, “The Limits of Online Consensus Effects: A Social Affirmation Theory of How Aggregate Online Rating Scores Influence Trust in Factual Corrections” (DOI: 10.1177/0093650218782823) is online at Communication Research. This paper adds nuance to our understanding of bandwagon effects by demonstrating that people’s faith in online ratings can be influenced by their political views.

I recently joined the Scholars Strategy Network, an organization that “seeks to improve public policy and strengthen democracy by connecting scholars and their research to policymakers, citizens associations, and the media.” I’ve written a short essay the draws on several of my research projects to help make sense of “fake news” and the post-truth era.

Fake News is a Symptom— Not the Cause— of Americans’ Growing Reluctance to Accept Shared Facts

If you’re interested in misinformation, you may want to check out the December 2017 issue of the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.  Stephan Lewandowsky and colleagues wrote the lead article, “Beyond Misinformation“, and invited several other scholars across a range of fields to comment on their work.  The result is a collection of 11 articles by 19 authors dealing with the question of how we “understand and cope with the ‘post-truth’ era”. In my response, “The ‘Echo Chamber’ Distraction”, I argue that we need to focus less on “echo chambers” and more on disinformation campaigns. Audiences aren’t as fragmented as many people seem to think, but efforts to spread politically motivated falsehoods are evolving rapidly.

For the next 50 days, access to the article is free using this link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WD5w7spf36NAm

If you want to know more about my research, you can find a summary of major themes in my work here, and a list of my publications here.  My policy briefs and popular press articles are available via the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN), and The Conversation. See below for recent news.

My chapter in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science is now available online.  Although the work focuses on climate change misperceptions, the mechanisms suggested are grounded in theory and should in most cases transcend the climate change debate.

I have a new paper out, in collaboration with Brian Weeks and Rachel Neo, which argues that using partisan news sites can encourage users to adopt beliefs that are inconsistent with what they know about the evidence. The paper is forthcoming in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and an electronic version is available now:  dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12164.  An OSU press release summarizing the work is also available here: https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/08/10/media-wedge/

I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in a workshop, “New Frontiers in Selective Exposure Research”, organized by Yariv Tsfati, Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, and Lilach Nir. There was an amazing group of scholars in attendance, the presentations were provocative, and the conversations lively. It was a great opportunity for Cornelia Mothes and I to get some feedback on our on-going collaboration.