Thanks for sharing these additional ideas and insights!
Also removing the extent to which dishonesty pays, for example with better fact-checking services.
I ran (and published a paper on) an experiment on fact-checking for my Psychology Honours in 2017, so I have a smidge of knowledge here, though itās a bit rusty. Some brief thoughts:
I do suspect ābetter fact-checking servicesā, in the sense of more accuracy or checking more facts, would be somewhatbeneficial
But I think thereās some reason for pessimism about just how much people really ācareā about the results of fact-checks, even when they see those fact-checks. Hereās my studyās abstract:
In the āpost-truth eraā, political fact-checking has become an issue of considerable significance. A recent study in the context of the 2016 US election found that fact-checks of statements by Donald Trump changed participantsā beliefs about those statementsāregardless of whether participants supported Trumpābut not their feelings towards Trump or voting intentions. However, the study balanced corrections of inaccurate statements with an equal number of affirmations of accurate statements. Therefore, the null effect of fact-checks on participantsā voting intentions and feelings may have arisen because of this artificially created balance. Moreover, Trumpās statements were not contrasted with statements from an opposing politician, and Trumpās perceived veracity was not measured. The present study (N = 370) examined the issue further, manipulating the ratio of corrections to affirmations, and using Australian politicians (and Australian participants) from both sides of the political spectrum. We hypothesized that fact-checks would correct beliefs and that fact-checks would affect votersā support (i.e. voting intentions, feelings and perceptions of veracity), but only when corrections outnumbered affirmations. Both hypotheses were supported, suggesting that a politicianās veracity does sometimes matter to voters. The effects of fact-checking were similar on both sides of the political spectrum, suggesting little motivated reasoning in the processing of fact-checks.
This is also relevant to the following sentence from the original post: āWhile the notion of Dark Tetrad traits is not foremost in most peopleās minds, one could argue that much political debate is about related concepts like the trustworthiness or honesty of candidates, and voters do value those attributes.ā I think this is true, but probably less true than many might think (or at least than they wouldāve thought pre-2016).
And then thereās also the matter of whether people come to encounter fact-checks in the first place. In my studyās conclusion, I wrote that āparticipants were unable to avoid fact-checks or to select which ones they received. In reality, some people may not encounter any fact-checks at all [9], and the sample of fact-checks which others encounter is often influenced by selective exposure and selective sharing [65,66].ā (I feel weird about quoting myself, but 2017 Michael knew more about this than 2020 Michael does!)
So Iād tentatively see more value in making fact-checking services ābetterā in the sense of being clearer, more attention-grabbing, better publicised, or things like that (as long as this doesnāt cost too much accuracy, nuance, etc.), rather than in e.g. making more or more accurate fact-checks.
And there may be still more value in somehow āshifting normsā towards valuing truth more highly, or things like that, though I donāt know how one would actually do that. (Iām guessing this post is relevant, but I havenāt read it yet.)
Iāve just read the results of an interesting new study on the effect of red-flagging some information on social media, with flags such as āMultiple fact-checking journalists dispute the credibility of this newsā, and variations with āMultiple fact-checking journalistsā replaced by, alternatively, āMajor news outletsā, āA majority of Americansā, or āComputer algorithms using AIā. The researchers tested the effect this had on the propensity of people to share the content. The effect of the āfact-checkingā phrasing was the most pronounced, and very significant (a reduction of about 40% of the probability to share content; which jumps to 60% for people who identify as Democrats). Overall the effect of the āAIā phrasing was also very significant, but quite counterintuitively it has the effect of increasing the probability of sharing content for people who identify as Republicans! (By about 8%; it decreases that same probability by 40% for people who identify as Democrats.) https://āāengineering.nyu.edu/āānews/āāresearchers-find-red-flagging-misinformation-could-slow-spread-fake-news-social-media
Thank you for the insight. I really have no strong view on how useful each /ā any of the ideas I suggested were. They were just ideas.
I would add on this point that narcissistic politicians I have encountered worried about appearance and bad press. I am pretty sure that transparency and fact checking etc discouraged them from making harmful decisions. Not every narcissistic leader is like Trump.
Yeah, that sounds right to me. And reminds me of a paper I read when working on that experiment, the abstract of which was:
Does external monitoring improve democratic performance? Fact-checking has come to play an increasingly important role in political coverage in the United States, but some research suggests it may be ineffective at reducing public misperceptions about controversial issues. However, fact-checking might instead help improve political discourse by increasing the reputational costs or risks of spreading misinformation for political elites. To evaluate this deterrent hypothesis, we conducted a field experiment on a diverse group of state legislators from nine U.S. states in the months before the November 2012 election. In the experiment, a randomly assigned subset of state legislators was sent a series of letters about the risks to their reputation and electoral security if they were caught making questionable statements. The legislators who were sent these letters were substantially less likely to receive a negative fact-checking rating or to have their accuracy questioned publicly, suggesting that fact-checking can reduce inaccuracy when it poses a salient threat.
Relatedly, it could be that āmoreā or ābetterā fact-checking would lead to better actions by or discourse from politicians, even if voters ādonāt really care muchā about fact-checks or never really see them, due to politicians overestimating what impact fact-checks would have on votersā perceptions.
(To be clear, I do think fact-checks probably have at least some impact via the more obvious route too; I wonder mostly about the magnitude of the effect, not whether it exists.)
Thanks for sharing these additional ideas and insights!
I ran (and published a paper on) an experiment on fact-checking for my Psychology Honours in 2017, so I have a smidge of knowledge here, though itās a bit rusty. Some brief thoughts:
I do suspect ābetter fact-checking servicesā, in the sense of more accuracy or checking more facts, would be somewhat beneficial
But I think thereās some reason for pessimism about just how much people really ācareā about the results of fact-checks, even when they see those fact-checks. Hereās my studyās abstract:
This is also relevant to the following sentence from the original post: āWhile the notion of Dark Tetrad traits is not foremost in most peopleās minds, one could argue that much political debate is about related concepts like the trustworthiness or honesty of candidates, and voters do value those attributes.ā I think this is true, but probably less true than many might think (or at least than they wouldāve thought pre-2016).
And then thereās also the matter of whether people come to encounter fact-checks in the first place. In my studyās conclusion, I wrote that āparticipants were unable to avoid fact-checks or to select which ones they received. In reality, some people may not encounter any fact-checks at all [9], and the sample of fact-checks which others encounter is often influenced by selective exposure and selective sharing [65,66].ā (I feel weird about quoting myself, but 2017 Michael knew more about this than 2020 Michael does!)
So Iād tentatively see more value in making fact-checking services ābetterā in the sense of being clearer, more attention-grabbing, better publicised, or things like that (as long as this doesnāt cost too much accuracy, nuance, etc.), rather than in e.g. making more or more accurate fact-checks.
And there may be still more value in somehow āshifting normsā towards valuing truth more highly, or things like that, though I donāt know how one would actually do that. (Iām guessing this post is relevant, but I havenāt read it yet.)
Iāve just read the results of an interesting new study on the effect of red-flagging some information on social media, with flags such as āMultiple fact-checking journalists dispute the credibility of this newsā, and variations with āMultiple fact-checking journalistsā replaced by, alternatively, āMajor news outletsā, āA majority of Americansā, or āComputer algorithms using AIā. The researchers tested the effect this had on the propensity of people to share the content. The effect of the āfact-checkingā phrasing was the most pronounced, and very significant (a reduction of about 40% of the probability to share content; which jumps to 60% for people who identify as Democrats). Overall the effect of the āAIā phrasing was also very significant, but quite counterintuitively it has the effect of increasing the probability of sharing content for people who identify as Republicans! (By about 8%; it decreases that same probability by 40% for people who identify as Democrats.)
https://āāengineering.nyu.edu/āānews/āāresearchers-find-red-flagging-misinformation-could-slow-spread-fake-news-social-media
Thank you for the insight. I really have no strong view on how useful each /ā any of the ideas I suggested were. They were just ideas.
I would add on this point that narcissistic politicians I have encountered worried about appearance and bad press. I am pretty sure that transparency and fact checking etc discouraged them from making harmful decisions. Not every narcissistic leader is like Trump.
Yeah, that sounds right to me. And reminds me of a paper I read when working on that experiment, the abstract of which was:
Relatedly, it could be that āmoreā or ābetterā fact-checking would lead to better actions by or discourse from politicians, even if voters ādonāt really care muchā about fact-checks or never really see them, due to politicians overestimating what impact fact-checks would have on votersā perceptions.
(To be clear, I do think fact-checks probably have at least some impact via the more obvious route too; I wonder mostly about the magnitude of the effect, not whether it exists.)