Category: Psychology & Anthropology

The first problem is that saying is believing. This is an old and well-studied phenomenon, though perhaps understudied in social media. So when you see a post … and you retweet or repost it, it’s not a neutral transaction. You, the reposter, don’t end that transaction unchanged.

It’s worthwhile to note as well that the nature of social media is we’re more likely to share inflammatory posts than non-inflammatory ones

from Facebook’s perspective they have two goals, and neither is about the quality of the community or well-being of its members. The first goal is to keep you creating Facebook content in the form of shares, likes, and comments. … The second Facebook goal is to keep you on the site at all costs, since this is where they can serve you ads.

There will be a lot of talk in the coming days about this or that change Facebook is looking at. But look at these two issues to get the real story:

• Do they promote deep reading over interaction?
• Do they encourage you to leave the site, even when the link is not inflammatory?

The larger problem is the far larger number of people who see the headlines and do not reshare them. Why is this a problem? Because for the most part, our brains equate “truth” with “things we’ve seen said a lot by people we trust.” The literature in this area is vast—it’s one of the reasons, for example, that so many people believe that global warming is a hoax.

Source: Facebook extremism and fake news: How Facebook is training us to be conspiracy theorists — Quartz

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

Even by the estimates of the National Center for Responsible Gaming, which was founded by industry members, 1.1 to 1.6 percent of the adult population in the United States—approximately 3 million to 4 million Americans—has a gambling disorder. That is more than the number of women living in the U.S. with a history of breast cancer. The center estimates that another 2 to 3 percent of adults, or an additional 5 million to 8 million Americans, meets some of the American Psychiatric Association’s criteria for addiction but have not yet progressed to the pathological, or disordered, stage.

Source: How Casinos Enable Gambling Addicts – The Atlantic

“They dispute each other not on priorities but on objective reality.”

In short, Democrats and Republicans don’t so much disagree about where to take the country, they disagree about which country they would be taking.

To any political scientist, this is not news. Survey data has long shown that factual claims often reflect partisan sympathies more than they do reality.

I think news organizations are missing opportunities. Everyone seems to publish a dozen polls a month highlighting American disagreements over subjective opinions. Why not publish more stories doing the same about factual opinions—and then take pains to describe the actual truth? If the idea is to shock and amaze people, I think factual surveys will likely do the trick.

Source: Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on the facts — Quartz

Answering a common question from a polarizing election cycle

What their choice means is very different than what it would mean for you to make it.

Source: How Millions of Good People Can Vote Differently Than You Will – The Atlantic

This is the safest time in human history. So why are we all so afraid?

“What we’re talking about is anxiety, not fear,” LeDoux says. Where fear is a response to a present threat, anxiety is a more complex and highly manipulable response to something one anticipates might be a threat in the future. “It is a worry about something that hasn’t happened and may never happen,” says LeDoux.
…
This may seem like a small distinction. But in actuality, it is everything. Because where fear is about a danger that seems certain, anxiety is, in LeDoux’s words, “an experience of uncertainty.”

And that uncertainty is the exact lever that politicians regularly use to try to influence your behavior.

The goal, however, is to separate real threats from manufactured ones. And to find a balance where we are not so scared that we’re making bad decisions that hurt us and our freedom, but not so oblivious that we aren’t taking steps to protect ourselves.

Source: Why We’re Living in the Age of Fear – Rolling Stone