EAGER: SaTC: Investigation of misinformation beliefs expressed and spread online

EAGER：SaTC：对网上表达和传播的错误信息信念进行调查

• 批准号: 2140473
• 负责人: Morteza Dehghani
• 金额: $ 19.52万
• 依托单位: University of Southern California
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2140473&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; SaTC; Investigation; misinformation; beliefs

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the widespread propagation of misinformation and the presence of active campaigns of malevolent persuasion via social cyberattacks. These trends threaten the integrity of public discourse, and pose significant challenges to productive information sharing. This program of research tests whether and how moral beliefs play a role in this process. Specifically, the goal of the project is to understand how some misinformation campaigns assert influence by tapping into their target audiences core values, and how this process can be monitored and prevented. We test morality as a potentially special case of ideological belief that may have a unique role in online persuasion. Overall, by examining social and cognitive processes influenced by modern social cyberattacks that target core values of their audience, this project has the potential to greatly increase our ability to predict and build resilience against future attacks.The project’s hypothesis arises from research showing that once an issue is framed as moral, it may become a non-negotiable imperative that merits acting upon regardless of the consequences. Our project is organized into two aims in service of this overall goal: 1) To investigate the social and cognitive mechanisms of moral and utilitarian message framing. In this aim, we test the persuasiveness of different types of message framing, both utilitarian and deontological, to test whether messages that are framed to resonate with the moral values of their target audiences exert special influence; 2) To examine how apparent social network information shapes responses to shared moral and utilitarian content. Given that adversaries often exert influence by manipulating social structures, we examine how information such as senders’ apparent social network characteristics shapes responses to messages and whether perception of moral as opposed to utilitarian beliefs of a social group is particularly impactful.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

近年来，错误信息的广泛传播和通过社会网络攻击进行恶意劝说的积极活动急剧增加。这些趋势威胁到公共话语的完整性，并对富有成效的信息共享构成重大挑战。这个研究项目测试道德信仰是否以及如何在这个过程中发挥作用。具体而言，该项目的目标是了解一些虚假宣传活动如何通过利用目标受众的核心价值观来发挥影响力，以及如何监测和防止这一过程。我们测试道德作为一个潜在的特殊情况下的意识形态信仰，可能有一个独特的作用，在网上说服。总的来说，通过研究现代社会网络攻击对社会和认知过程的影响，该项目有可能大大提高我们预测和建立抵御未来攻击的能力。该项目的假设来自研究表明，一旦一个问题被框定为道德问题，它可能成为一个不可谈判的当务之急，值得采取行动，无论后果如何。我们的研究主要分为两个方面：（1）探讨道德和功利信息框架的社会和认知机制。在这个目标中，我们测试的说服力不同类型的消息框架，功利主义和道义论，以测试是否框定的消息，以产生共鸣的道德价值观的目标受众施加特殊的影响; 2）研究如何明显的社会网络信息形状的反应，以共享的道德和功利主义的内容。鉴于对手经常通过操纵社会结构来施加影响，我们研究了信息，如"明显的社会网络特征“，如何塑造对信息的反应，以及与社会群体的功利主义信仰相对的道德观念是否特别有影响力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.