Ralph is a cognitive psychologist and behavioral decision scientist. He is the director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. His research examines models of bounded rationality such as simple heuristics, the importance of learning and decisions from experience, the measurement of risk preferences, and ways to change people’s behavior for the better by boosting their cognitive and motivational competences in the online and offline world. 12:30 Welcome address: Reclaiming autonomy online The presentation will briefly reflect on the history and the (unfortunate) urgency of the project.
Philipp’s research focuses on the complexity of self-organized online discourse and and its impact on democracies worldwide. His aim is to better understand the interplay between human behaviour and the connectivity and functioning of online platforms, in particular how this affects the public discourse. 12:50 Is the global decline in democracy linked to social media? One of today’s most controversial and consequential issues is whether the global uptake of digital media is causally related to a decline in democracy. We conducted a systematic review of causal and correlational evidence (N = 496 articles) on the link between digital media use and different political variables. Some associations, such as increasing political participation and information consumption, are likely to be beneficial for democracy and were often observed in autocracies and emerging democracies. Other associations, such as declining political trust, increasing populism and growing polarization, are likely to be detrimental to democracy and were more pronounced in established democracies.
Anastasia Kozyreva is a senior research scientist at the Center for Adaptive Rationality (ARC) at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Her current research focuses on misinformation policy, including public attitudes to content moderation, and cognitive interventions that could help counteract the rising challenges of false information and online manipulation. 13:10 Toolbox of individual-level interventions against online misinformation To address the spread of misinformation, policy makers require a successful interface between science and policy, as well as a range of evidence-based solutions that respect fundamental rights while efficiently mitigating the harms of misinformation online. In this talk, I discuss how psychological science can help address some of these problems and introduce a toolbox of behavioral and cognitive interventions, developed based on an expert review by 30 misinformation researchers.
Jason Reifler is a political scientist whose research focuses on misinformation, political behavior, and the effectiveness of fact-checking. His work often explores the dynamics of political misperceptions and strategies to mitigate their impact. After 11 years at the University of Exeter, this summer he starts a new position at the University of Southampton. He is also a Tottenham Hotspur supporter. 14:15 (Mis)information Flows and Public Beliefs about Voter Fraud in the 2020 and 2022 U.S. Elections Unreliable information about election fraud is abundant online and threatens to undermine confidence in American elections. In this talk, I will present results from a survey experiment showing that corrections debunking claims of widespread voter fraud can reduce misperceptions. The results underscore the importance of increasing exposure to trustworthy online news content and fact-checking among those most likely to hold misperceptions.
Mubashir is interested in decision making on social media, with a focus on misinformation. For his PhD, he is investigating who is susceptible to misinformation on social media and why. With a background in social psychology and cognitive science, he uses experimental methods and computational modelling to approach these topics. 14:35 Susceptibility to Online Misinformation: A Systematic Meta-Analysis of Demographic and Psychological Factors This talk presents a systematic synthesis of 31 studies examining how key demographic (age, gender, education, political identity) and psychological factors (analytical thinking, ideological congruency, motivated reflection, familiarity) influence misinformation veracity judgements. Using the framework of signal detection theory, we distinguish between the ability to differentiate true from false news (discrimination ability) and response bias (tendency to label news as true or false). I present and contextualise the outcomes of the findings in this talk.
Ronald Robertson designs experiments and software to study the ways in which humans and algorithms interact in digital spaces, especially as they pertain to information seeking. His research aims to help us better understand the intersection of user choice, algorithmic curation, and choice architecture in online platforms, 14:55 Disentangling User Choice and Algorithmic Curation in Online Systems
Widespread concerns about the impact of online systems are often discussed in metaphorically compelling but operationally limited terms, such as echo chambers, filter bubbles, and rabbit holes. In this talk I examine how such concerns can be better understood and measured in terms of user choice (what people do) and algorithmic curation (what people see). To do so, I provide an overview of research that examines these aspects in isolation and under controlled conditions, and a deeper dive on two recent papers that examines how humans and algorithms interact under ecological conditions.
Almog Simchon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His research examines the intersections of social networks, social psychology, and language, focusing on their roles in political polarization, misinformation, and countering anti-democratic processes. 15:15 The microtargeting manipulation machine The persuasive effects of political microtargeting in the age of generative artificial intelligence: exploring how personalized, human-generated, and AI-generated ads tailored to individual personality traits enhance effectiveness.
Fabio Carrella is a Senior Research Associate at the School of Psychological Science at the University of Bristol. His current interests include misinformation, microtargeting, and political discourse analysis through computational methodologies. 15:35 The effects of warning pop-ups in countering psychological microtargeting Microtargeting in politics raises ethical concerns as it manipulates individuals through personality-tailored ads. Our three studies found personality-targeted ads significantly more persuasive than non-targeted ones, and while warning popups reduced their persuasiveness slightly, the impact was minimal, highlighting concerns about the effectiveness of transparency measures.