Reception and production of scientific information in Wikipedia: The influence of hindsight bias

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When laypersons search the Internet for information they are frequently confronted with a variety of scientific findings, which are often inconsistent and thus provide a challenge for the recipient. In the first project we proposed that hindsight bias facilitates the handling of conflicting evidence by focussing on outcome consistent information. Our findings support this notion both, for recipients as well as for producers of web contents. However, hindsight bias in Wikipedia articles was limited to one particular type of events - disasters. In the present research proposal we suggest three poten-tial explanations for this pattern of results and it is one of the four main goals of this project to test which explanation accounts for the results. Secondly we aim at identifying the underlying mechanisms of the reception effects we obtained: hindsight bias increased in readers of articles that were biased by hindsight above and beyond their prior individual (classic) hindsight bias. The third major goal of this research proposal is to investigate the interplay of reception and production processes that arise in the context of dynamic revisions such as in Wikipedia. Last but not least, the fourth major goal of the project is to examine potential countermeasures against hindsight bias both, in the production and reception of web contents. We will make use of a combination of field and lab studies in order to ensure both, external and internal validity of our findings.