Abstract
There is growing concern that online information searchers are overconfident and therefore largely search for information which reinforces their prior attitudes, blinded by confirmation bias. This study tests if this effect can be reduced in content aggregation platforms, when social tag clouds show popular topics among experts. We manipulated (1) confidence in prior attitudes, and (2) the credibility of the expert community that tagged the content. We found that both factors influence navigation in different ways. First, attitude confidence moderated the influence of prior attitudes when choosing how much attitude-consistent content in blog posts to read. When attitude confidence was high, prior attitudes were positively associated with selection of blog posts, when low, not positively associated. After navigation, when confidence was high, the content of attitude-consistent blog posts was more favourably evaluated, whereas when confidence was low, attitude inconsistent blog posts were more favourably evaluated. Second, source credibility moderated the influence of prior attitudes on tag selection. When source credibility was low, prior attitudes did guide tag selection, when high, they did not. With low source credibility, people selected more attitude-consistent content. The findings advance social tagging theories by showing that not only semantic associations, but also attitudes play a role when people select and process tags and related content. The findings also show that credibility and confidence have a different impact on different stages of information selection and evaluation. Whereas credibility is more important when switching among pages, attitude confidence is more important when reading and evaluating the content of one page.
Highlights
In online environments, it has been suggested that we often find ourselves in a filter bubble or echo chamber, where we only receive and attend to information that is consistent with our views and prior attitudes (e.g. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10])
Blog post authors and cited sources within blog posts were constant and tested in a Attitude confidence and source credibility in information foraging with social tags prior study
Attitude confidence and source credibility in information foraging with social tags the study twice (n = 2), who did not provide prior attitudes(n = 2) or did not click on tags (n = 2)
Summary
It has been suggested that we often find ourselves in a filter bubble or echo chamber, where we only receive and attend to information that is consistent with our views and prior attitudes (e.g. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]). Confirmation bias is prevalent and pertinent in online content platforms [4,5,6,7,10], and it fundamentally shapes our search for, and evaluation of information [1,11]. Online search is so important that people still prefer to search online for an answer to a question even if they have an answer at hand [12] This suggests that searchers have less confidence in their own knowledge than in information they find online [12]. People are exceedingly confident about their knowledge in spite of actual limitations to that knowledge Such confidence has been exhibited in a large range of domains [13]. In the study presented here, we investigate whether confirmation bias increases when searchers are highly confident and perceive their own attitudes as highly valid
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