In determining what’s true, Americans consider the intentions of the information source
Boston College psychologists tested the roots of truth judgments in a so-called “post-truth” era
Peer-Reviewed PublicationChestnut Hill, Mass. (7/17/2023) – Putting truth to the test in the “post-truth era”, Boston College psychologists conducted experiments that show when Americans decide whether a claim of fact should qualify as true or false, they consider the intentions of the information source, the team reported recently in Nature’s Scientific Reports.
That confidence is based on what individuals think the source is trying to do – in this case either informing or deceiving their audience.
“Even when people know precisely how accurate or inaccurate a claim of fact is, whether they consider that claim to be true or false hinges on the intentions they attribute to the claim’s information source,” said Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Liane Young, an author of the report. “In other words, the intentions of information sources sway people’s judgments about what information should qualify as true.”
Lead author Isaac Handley-Miner, a PhD student and researcher in Young’s Morality Lab, said the so-called post-truth era has revealed vigorous disagreement over the truth of claims of fact — even for claims that are easy to verify.
“That disagreement has alarmed our society,” said Handley-Miner. “After all, it’s often assumed that the labels ‘true’ and ‘false’ should correspond to the objective accuracy of a claim. But is objective accuracy actually the only criterion people consider when deciding what should qualify as true or false? Or, even when people know how objectively accurate a given claim of fact is, might they be sensitive to features of the social context—such as the intentions of the information source? We set out to test whether the intentions of information sources affect whether people consider a claim of fact to be true or false even when they have access to the ground truth.”
The researchers showed participants a series of claims accompanied by the ground truth relevant to those claims, according to the report. In one experiment, the claims concerned politicized topics such as climate change, abortion, and gun violence. In another experiment, these claims concerned non-politicized topics such as the average lifespan of a car and the price of a pair of headphones. The researchers asked participants in both experiments to decide whether they would consider each claim of fact to be true or false.
When presented with a claim of fact, study participants were presented with one of two scenarios about the source of the information they were assessing: the information source either wanted to deceive or inform them. To do this, the researchers swapped out the news outlet that allegedly published the claim. For example, one participant might be told that a claim about climate change came from Fox News, while another participant might be told that the same claim about climate change came from MSNBC, Handley-Miner said.
In the experiment with claims about non-politicized topics, the researchers told the participants whether the information source was trying to be informative or deceptive, he said.
“We presented participants with claims of fact and ensured that participants knew precisely how accurate or inaccurate those claims were,” Handley-Miner said. “Across participants, we varied whether the source of those claims intended to inform or deceive their audience. Participants reported whether they would consider the claims to be true or false given the supplied ground truth. We then evaluated whether participants were more likely to classify claims as true when the information source was trying to inform versus deceive their audience.”
The researchers worked with 1,181 participants and examined approximately 16,200 responses fielded during their experiments.
Although participants knew precisely how accurate the claims were, participants classified claims as false more often when they judged the information source to be intending to deceive them.
Similarly, they classified claims as true more often when they judged the information source to be intending to provide an approximate account rather than a precise one, according to the study. For instance, what if someone knows for certain that 114 people attended an event, but one source reports 109 people attended, and another source reports that 100 attended? An individual is likely to view the latter number as true because it’s assumed the source is providing an estimate, Young said.
The findings suggest that, even if people have access to the same set of facts, they might disagree about the truth of claims if they attribute discrepant intentions to information sources.
The results demonstrated that people are not merely sensitive to the objective accuracy of claims of fact when classifying them as true or false. While this study focused on the intent of the information source, Young and Handley-Miner say intent is probably not the only other feature people use to evaluate truth.
In future work, the researchers hope to develop an expanded understanding about how people think about truth. Moreover, given the rise in popularity of Artificial Intelligence models, such as ChatGPT, the researchers may investigate whether state-of-the-art AI models “think” about truth similarly to humans, or whether these models merely attend to objective accuracy when evaluating truth.
The research was supported by funding from John Templeton Foundation, the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, and BC’s Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society’s Grants for Exploratory Collaborative Scholarship (SIGECS) program.
In addition to Young and Handley-Miner, co-authors of the report included doctoral candidate Michael Pope, Boston College Associate Professor of Philosophy Richard Atkins, Associate Professor of Communication Mo Jones-Jang, and Associate Professor of Philosophy Daniel McKaughan; and Dartmouth College’s Jonathan Phillips.
JOURNAL
Scientific Reports
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
The intentions of information sources can affect what information people think qualifies as true
Political apathy spreads from parents to
adolescent children
Study identifies risks unique to families with close ties
IMAGE: IN MANY COUNTRIES IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA, THE YOUNGEST VOTERS HAVE THE LOWEST PARTICIPATION RATES. view more
CREDIT: ALEX DOLCE, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
Political apathy is growing in democracies around the world. Political apathy, also known as political alienation, describes feelings of separation and disaffection, a sense of powerlessness and an indifference to politics and political institutions. A hallmark of political alienation is a refusal to vote or participate in political activities. Adolescents and young adults are no exception to these trends. In many countries in Europe and North America, the youngest voters have the lowest participation rates.
Why are new voters so apathetic about politics? Many factors are at play. However, a new study from researchers at Florida Atlantic University focused on one of the most salient: parent attitudes about politics.
The study, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, indicates that political disaffection spreads from parents to children. Specifically, parent political alienation predicted subsequent increases in adolescent child political alienation one year later for youth who described relationships with parents as warm, but not for those who described relationships with parents as distant.
Put simply, in households where parents and adolescents are close, parents transmit political apathy to their adolescent children, which may have the unfortunate consequence of contributing to low political participation among young voters.
In this study, 571 German adolescents (314 girls, 257 boys), along with their mothers and their fathers, each completed questionnaires describing their own political alienation at two time points, approximately one year apart. In addition, adolescents completed questionnaires describing their perceptions of warmth in relationships with parents. Adolescents were in grades six, eight and 10 at the outset.
Mothers and fathers did not differ in terms of influence. Both were equally important in shaping adolescent attitudes about politics. Influence was a one-way street: adolescents did not contribute to the political alienation of either parent.
The findings from this new study are important because they point to a potentially promising new avenue of raising political participation among young voters: targeting the political attitudes of those with whom they are close, particularly their parents.
“The logic is straightforward,” said Brett Laursen, Ph.D., senior author and a psychology professor in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. “Children who are close to their parents are more likely to identify with them and are more receptive to messages from them about politics. We listen to those we like, we engage them in dialogue, we identify with them and we emulate their behaviors.”
Political alienation reflects distrust and a lack of confidence in political systems and political figures. Political disaffection can be challenging for democracies as politically alienated citizens tend not to vote. When elections are decided by a small portion of the electorate, disaffection grows, which can further drive down turnout in a vicious cycle. It is difficult to change attitudes about politics. Many politically disaffected young adults continue to refrain from voting and political participation as they get older.
Findings from this study also are a reminder that parent influence is a double-edged sword.
“The results of our study matter because despite the rising importance of friends and peers, many forms of adolescent behavior remain highly susceptible to parent influence,” said Laursen. “We like to think of parents as positive socialization agents, and typically they are. But bad habits and bad attitudes also can spread from parents to children, and parents should be alert to this possibility. Some parents underestimate their importance. Children are watching and listening, even during late adolescence. They take cues from parents, particularly in families that are close-knit and warm. Attitudes toward politics are just another example of the many ways that parents exert a profound and lasting impact on the lives of their children.”
- FAU -
About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.
JOURNAL
Journal of Family Psychology
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Case study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
The Spread of Political Alienation From Parents to Adolescent Children
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