Negativity bias in the spread of voter fraud conspiracy theory tweets during the 2020 US election

Youngblood, Mason; Acerbi, Alberto; Glassman, Ryan; Morin, Olivier; Stubbersfield, Joseph M.

doi:10.31234/osf.io/2jksg

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…For understanding online misinformation, a key factor should be how β and J act upon the sharing of information that are explicitly labelled by popularity (likes) as well as varying micro-levels of intrinsic utility, iterated over thousands/millions of online actions [61,124]. The interaction between β and J indicates a reason why culture with massive numbers of users (large J and N, low β) arguably change continually without necessarily getting 'better' [61,66,91,[138][139][140]. Additionally, the homophily under conformity in the model resembles the well-known sorting and polarization in social media and politics [129,134,135,141].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A cultural evolutionary theory that explains both gradual and punctuated change

Vidiella

Carrignon²,

Bentley

et al. 2022

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) occurs among humans who may be presented with many similar options from which to choose, as well as many social influences and diverse environments. It is unknown what general principles underlie the wide range of CCE dynamics and whether they can all be explained by the same unified paradigm. Here, we present a scalable evolutionary model of discrete choice with social learning, based on a few behavioural science assumptions. This paradigm connects the degree of transparency in social learning to the human tendency to imitate others. Computer simulations and quantitative analysis show the interaction of three primary factors—information transparency, popularity bias and population size—drives the pace of CCE. The model predicts a stable rate of evolutionary change for modest degrees of popularity bias. As popularity bias grows, the transition from gradual to punctuated change occurs, with maladaptive subpopulations arising on their own. When the popularity bias gets too severe, CCE stops. This provides a consistent framework for explaining the rich and complex adaptive dynamics taking place in the real world, such as modern digital media.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A cultural evolutionary theory that explains both gradual and punctuated change

Vidiella

Carrignon²,

Bentley

et al. 2022

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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“…While research within cultural evolution often focuses on the role of context biases in transmission, recent research suggests that content biases are as influential, or more influential than context biases on the selection (Acerbi & Tehrani, 2018), faithful transmission (Berl et al, 2021) and wider dissemination of information (Youngblood et al, 2021). Here research examining content biases is reviewed, with a focus on considering these biases across three phases of transmission: choose-to-receive, encode-and-retrieve, and choose-to-transmit.…”

Section: General Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some research suggests a general advantage for more emotionally arousing content online (Brady, Wills, Jost, Tucker, & Bavel, 2017;Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan, 2013; but see critiques in; Burton, Cruz, & Hahn, 2021). Other research suggests an advantage for negative content, finding evidence for negativity in online "fake news" articles (Acerbi, 2019), within online "echo chambers" (Asatani, Yamano, Sakaki, & Sakata, 2021;Del Vicario et al, 2016), in tweets about political events (Bellovary, Young, & Goldenberg, 2021;de León & Trilling, 2021;Schöne, Parkinson, & Goldenberg, 2021), in tweets about electoral conspiracy theories (Youngblood et al, 2021) and in tweets about a climate change summit (Hansen, Arvidsson, Nielsen, Colleoni, & Etter, 2011). However, this is not universal, other research has found evidence for positivity bias in the sharing of news content on social media (Bakshy, Hofman, Mason, & Watts, 2011;Trilling, Tolochko, & Burscher, 2017).…”

Section: Emotion Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, is one of the most cited transmission biases (Jiménez & Mesoudi, 2019) but has been found to be less influential on the transmission of narratives than social, threat, negative emotional, and MCI content biases (Berl, Samarasinghe, Roberts, Jordan, & Gavin, 2021). Content biases have also been found to be equivalent to, or more important than context biases in studies of the selection of inspirational quotes (Acerbi & Tehrani, 2018) and the dissemination of conspiracy theories (Youngblood, Stubbersfield, Morin, Glassman, & Acerbi, 2021).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Content biases in three phases of cultural transmission: A review

Stubbersfield

2022

CultEv

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Cultural evolution theory proposes that information transmitted through social learning is not transmitted indiscriminately but is instead biased by heuristics and mechanisms which increase the likelihood that individuals will copy particular cultural traits based on their inherent properties (content biases) and copy the cultural traits of particular models, or under particular circumstances (context biases). Recent research suggests that content biases are as important, or more important, than context biases in the selection and faithful transmission of cultural traits. Here, evidence for biases for emotive, social, threat-related, stereotype consistent and counterintuitive content is reviewed, focusing on how these biases may operate across three phases of transmission: choose-to-receive, encode-and-retrieve, and choose-to-transmit. Support for some biases primarily functioning as biases of attention and memory, while others primarily function as biases of selection to share with others, and the implications for this in wider cultural evolution is discussed. Ultimately, a more consistent approach to examining content biases, and greater engagement with wider literature, is required for clear conclusions about their mechanism and potential differences across the three phases of transmission.

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“…A byproduct of this coevolution is that major changes in collective structure can reduce the adaptiveness of social learning strategies. In global and interconnected online communities, tendencies to defer to prestige or attend to negative messages might enhance the spread of misinformation or conspiracy theories (Acerbi, 2016;Youngblood et al, 2021). In declining animal species with learned migration and foraging routes, tendencies to conform might reduce their ability to respond to human-induced environmental changes (Barrett et al, 2019).…”

Section: Culture As Collective Intelligencementioning

confidence: 99%

All Intelligence is Collective Intelligence

Falandays¹,

Kaaronen²,

Moser³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Collective intelligence, broadly conceived, refers to the adaptive behavior achieved by groups through the interactions of their members, often involving phenomena such as consensus building, cooperation, and competition. The standard view of collective intelligence is that it is a distinct phenomenon from supposed individual intelligence. In this position piece, we argue that a more parsimonious stance is to consider all intelligent adaptive behavior as being driven by similar abstract principles of collective dynamics. To illustrate this point, we highlight how similar principles are at work in the intelligent behavior of groups of non-human animals, multicellular organisms, brains, small groups of humans, cultures, and even evolution itself. If intelligent behavior in all of these systems is best understood as the emergent result of collective interactions, we ask what is left to be called “individual intelligence”? We believe that viewing all intelligence as collective intelligence offers greater explanatory power and generality, and may promote fruitful cross-disciplinary exchange in the study of intelligent adaptive behavior.

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Negativity bias in the spread of voter fraud conspiracy theory tweets during the 2020 US election

Cited by 9 publications

References 50 publications

A cultural evolutionary theory that explains both gradual and punctuated change

A cultural evolutionary theory that explains both gradual and punctuated change

Content biases in three phases of cultural transmission: A review

All Intelligence is Collective Intelligence

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