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

近年来，错误信息的广泛传播以及通过社交网络攻击进行恶意说服的积极活动急剧增加。这些趋势威胁到公共话语的完整性，并对有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利用其目标受众的核心价值观来施加影响，以及如何监测和预防这一过程。我们将道德作为一种潜在的意识形态信仰的特殊案例进行测试，它可能在网络说服中发挥着独特的作用。总的来说，通过研究受现代社会网络攻击影响的社会和认知过程，这些攻击以受众的核心价值观为目标，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。该项目的假设源于一项研究，该研究表明，一旦一个问题被框定为道德问题，它就可能成为一种不可协商的必要条件，无论后果如何，都值得采取行动。为了实现这一总体目标，我们的项目分为两个目标：1)研究道德和功利主义信息框架的社会和认知机制。在此目的中，我们测试了不同类型的信息框架的说服力，包括功利主义和义务论，以测试与目标受众的道德价值观产生共鸣的信息是否会产生特殊的影响；2)研究明显的社会网络信息如何影响对共享的道德和功利内容的反应。鉴于对手经常通过操纵社会结构来施加影响，我们研究了诸如发送者明显的社会网络特征等信息如何影响对信息的反应，以及与社会群体的功利主义信念相反的道德观念是否特别有影响力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.