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Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source

hu-berlin.de

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Re: Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source

#21

Post by firebaze »

stingblue wrote: post #19

It may be that believing what we hear / see is an evolutionary survival trait, a built-in cognitive default. I think this because the young of ancient humans had a FAR better chance of survival if they believed their elders. Examples: don't play in those woods or you may get eaten; don't eat THOSE pretty berries or you will get sick and maybe die; here is how you hunt or harvest food; and so on. It is hard to overcom…

Humans are 1-2 orders of magnitude more influenced by habit instead of genetic predisposition. There are plenty of sources for that argument.

In other words: educate your children, peers and acquaintances how to escape emotional headlines a.k.a. clickbait. I know you know.

Re: Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source

#22

Post by nitrogen »

qsort wrote: post #15
nitrogen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers frequently lie that they prefer honest headlines No. "Revealed preference" is exploitation of vice, plain and simple. Addicts might honestly say they would prefer to abstain, but still relapse. The same dopamine systems are being exploited in either case.

That's a distinction without a difference. An addict who says they prefer to abstain but doesn't, doesn't actually prefer to abstain. Where preferences come from is irrelevant. De gustibus non disputandum est.

This is conflating desires/aspirations/preferences with basic drives.

Everyone has base instincts that we inherited through evolution, and more evolutionarily recent executive control that we have to exercise and develop. "Revealed preference" tends to manipulate the base instinct at the expense of executive control.

Re: Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source

#23

Post by guenthert »

nerdponx wrote: post #6

The subjects' brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalogram (EEG) while they made judgments about the individuals. Fast, involuntary brain responses can be distinguished here from slower, more controlled responses. The researchers had expected the latter to involve consideration of the source's credibility in addition to emotion, and thus that credibility might factor into people’s judgments, whereas emot…

> Are these types of results generally reproducible? How do we know they are valid?

It's a new study, so no-one had the opportunity to reproduce their findings yet. Generally in the scientific community, one tries to find the flaw in their argument/methods, rather then presuming them to be faulty.

It doesn't seem like a very complicated, time consuming or costly experiment (compared with e.g. the search for the higgs boson), so I'd think it's reasonable to expect another team to reproduce the results in the near future, if there is sufficient interest.

Re: Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source

#25

Post by nerdponx »

guenthert wrote: post #23
nerdponx wrote: post #6

The subjects' brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalogram (EEG) while they made judgments about the individuals. Fast, involuntary brain responses can be distinguished here from slower, more controlled responses. The researchers had expected the latter to involve consideration of the source's credibility in addition to emotion, and thus that credibility might factor into people’s judgments, whereas emot…

> Are these types of results generally reproducible? How do we know they are valid? It's a new study, so no-one had the opportunity to reproduce their findings yet. Generally in the scientific community, one tries to find the flaw in their argument/methods, rather then presuming them to be faulty. It doesn't seem like a very complicated, time consuming or costly experiment (compared with e.g. the search for the higgs…

My question was more about the EEG method in general. Even if this one result is new, surely this method has been used many times in the past.

So no, I am not just assuming the study is faulty. I am asking a specific question about the validity of one of the core study methods.

Re: Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source

#27

Post by johncena33 »

m463 wrote: post #16

I find the new york times sort of annoying now. I like them and even set up a script to pull down the homepage as a .pdf each day to read it. Today's would be: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/12/30/nytfrontpage/scan.pdf But I found the articles I generally read (mostly links from hn) have a different quality than the front page. The front page articles seem emotional. They seem opinionated. Bit they're not marke…

Lot of traditional liberal media including NYT have resorted to yellow journalism. This is probably because of advent of internet. But that doesn't absolve them from the wrong-doings. Lot of published articles are "technically true", but intentionally misleading. Lot of articles are very clearly politically motivated, but packaged under the guise of some good cause. The identity politics born in universities and made mainstream by Twitter has essentially ended ethical journalism and gave birth to activist journalism.

Re: Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source

#28

Post by canadaduane »

guenthert wrote: post #23
nerdponx wrote: post #6

The subjects' brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalogram (EEG) while they made judgments about the individuals. Fast, involuntary brain responses can be distinguished here from slower, more controlled responses. The researchers had expected the latter to involve consideration of the source's credibility in addition to emotion, and thus that credibility might factor into people’s judgments, whereas emot…

> Are these types of results generally reproducible? How do we know they are valid? It's a new study, so no-one had the opportunity to reproduce their findings yet. Generally in the scientific community, one tries to find the flaw in their argument/methods, rather then presuming them to be faulty. It doesn't seem like a very complicated, time consuming or costly experiment (compared with e.g. the search for the higgs…

> compared with e.g. the search for the higgs boson

Understatement of the month, haha. I don't suppose you debate in engineering circles?

Re: Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source

#29

Post by smt88 »

crmd wrote: post #13

The only solution is not to engage with emotionally manipulative content. Even, for example, with nerdy YouTube channels that I love, if a video shows up in my feed: * with a title $villain $unflattering_third_person_present_verb $something * with the format $hero $flattering_third_person_present_verb $something * a person in the thumbnail making an o-face[1] for any reason Then I simply don’t click on it. [1] https:…

But you've already read it, even if you don't click, so hasn't it already affected you?

Re: Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source

#30

Post by CompuHacker »

gryfft wrote: post #18
crmd wrote: post #13

The only solution is not to engage with emotionally manipulative content. Even, for example, with nerdy YouTube channels that I love, if a video shows up in my feed: * with a title $villain $unflattering_third_person_present_verb $something * with the format $hero $flattering_third_person_present_verb $something * a person in the thumbnail making an o-face[1] for any reason Then I simply don’t click on it. [1] https:…

I use the same rubric but go one step further and tell YouTube not to recommend any videos from that channel.

Have attempted to do this with recommendations for 30-120s clips with 500,000 to 2,000,000 views from old TV shows, cartoons, and movies. It's not working.

I'd rather read a spreadsheet with a list of public YouTube video IDs/metadata than experience the silence in the downtime between worthwhile videos.

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