Thomas I. Vaughan-Johnston
Facilitating Scientific Communication Between Strangers: A Preregistered Lost E-Mail Experiment
Vaughan-Johnston, Thomas I.; Fowlie, Devin I.; Jacobson, Jill A.
Authors
Devin I. Fowlie
Jill A. Jacobson
Abstract
Communication scholars are increasingly concerned about biases that shape people's interactions with science. Past study has focused on echo chambers (cultivating social networks that reinforce existing worldviews). People's facilitation of scientific discourse between strangers also may be shaped by their attitudes. To study the latter, we employed a recent adaptation of Milgram's lost letter technique called the lost e-mail technique (LET). We conducted a preregistered field study using a large undergraduate university sample (N = 1,508) to examine how the LET might elucidate people's treatment of scientific information. We distributed four ostensibly misaddressed scientific messages and monitored the likelihood of these e-mails being facilitated by participants. Participants' beliefs about self-esteem's importance, assessed months earlier, were associated with increased facilitation of scientific claims congruent with (vs. incongruent with) these beliefs. Thus, people shape the spread of online information in a manner matching their beliefs, even for people outside their social networks.
Citation
Vaughan-Johnston, T. I., Fowlie, D. I., & Jacobson, J. A. (2022). Facilitating Scientific Communication Between Strangers: A Preregistered Lost E-Mail Experiment. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 25(7), 424-431. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0272
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Feb 28, 2022 |
Online Publication Date | Apr 25, 2022 |
Publication Date | Jul 11, 2022 |
Deposit Date | May 11, 2022 |
Publicly Available Date | Apr 25, 2023 |
Journal | Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking |
Print ISSN | 2152-2715 |
Electronic ISSN | 2152-2723 |
Publisher | Mary Ann Liebert |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 25 |
Issue | 7 |
Pages | 424-431 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0272 |
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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: Vaughan-Johnston, Thomas I., Fowlie, Devin I. & Jacobson, Jill A. (2022). Facilitating Scientific Communication Between Strangers: A Preregistered Lost E-Mail Experiment. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 25(7): 424-431, which has now been formally published in final form at Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking at https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0272. This original submission version of the article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers’ self-archiving terms and conditions.
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