LECTURE 16: ‘SELECTIVE ATTENTION, MOTIVATED REASONING, ATTITUDE FORMATION AND HEALTHY LIVING’

Question 1

conformation bias

Answer 1

Question 2

Study: The credibility of online (fake) news
goals and assumptions and method

Answer 2

Goal of study:
- Test whether source leaning and message leaning affect credibility.

Assumptions:
- Information that is congruent with your political attitude will be perceived as more credible compared to information that is incongruent with your political attitude.
- Information coming from a source that is congruent with your political beliefs will be perceived as more credible compared to a source that is incongruent with your political beliefs

Method: Experiment in which participants were exposed to FAKE Facebook posts

Question 3

measures of the study

Answer 3

o Dependent variable:
o Credibility of information (Appelman & Sundar, 2016) o I think the news message is
▪ Inaccurate ….Accurate
▪ False … Authentic
▪ Unbelievable … believable

• Independent variable:
  o Political orientation
• Manipulations
  o Facebook posts with source and or message being congruent or incongruent to own political orientation.
• Significant effect of message congruity on perceived credibility
• Significant effect of source congruity on perceived credibility

Question 4

The belief in online quackery

Answer 4

= involves the use of methods or remedies to cure diseases that are not scientifically accepted.

Question 5

Cyberchondria (Definition)

Answer 5

= an excessive or repeated search for health-related information on the Internet, driven by distress or anxiety about health, which only amplifies such distress or anxiety. Thus, cyberchondria is a counterproductive cycle of online searches for reassuring health information.”

Question 6

Two theoretical approaches underpin our line of reasoning:

Answer 6

• Cognitive behavioral model of health anxiety (e.g., Abramowitz & Moore, 2007)
• llness-related attentional bias (Hadjistavropoulos et al., 1998; Owens et al., 2004)

Question 7

Cognitive behavioral model of health anxiety

Answer 7

Question 8

Ilness-related attentional bias

Answer 8

= Overwhelmed by the amount of information that can be found (with uncertain quality)

• Selective searching
• Selective exposure
• Selective attention
• Cognitive bias for confirming information

Question 9

study: How do changes in online health-related information seeking influence levels of health anxiety, and vice versa?
main findings (3)

Answer 9

• Those individuals who are more health anxious than others, also search online for health information more.
• For individuals with clinical levels of health anxiety, an increase in health anxiety is not associated with an increase in online health information seeking over time, and vice versa.
• For individuals with non-clinical levels of health anxiety, the expected reciprocal relationship between online health information seeking and health anxiety is found.