Cognitive Authority Research Articles

Trust in nutrition information sources used by university students

This study explored university students’ information-seeking behaviours related to nutrition. The focus was on cognitive authority, specifically, the trust given to information sources. Research questions encompassed identifying university students’ nutrition needs, information sources usage, and the levels of trust in those sources. A questionnaire was completed by 138 students, and six students were interviewed. Overall, the Internet is the most used information source on nutrition, followed by family and friends. Trust in the information from the Internet in general and social media is relatively low. However, specific authors on social media are perceived as trustworthy. Interviews revealed that students evaluate specific online sources based on author expertise, systematically organised information, and other cues. Expert sources of information are highly trusted but, on average, not often used. Only students with health problems mostly rely on experts and professional literature. Students engaged in training and weight maintenance primarily follow social media, notably specific authors on YouTube and Instagram. Trust in information sources is correlated to their usage, especially for Instagram and other social media. These insights into university students’ information-seeking behaviours can inform experts involved in educating students on making informed choices based on information gained from trustworthy sources.

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Strategies for information source selection: A focus group study on young people in Europe

The article presents findings from a study that examined how young people select, consult and evaluate multiple information sources to validate the information they seek. It contributes to the field of information behaviour and helps in designing better information services. Eight focus group interviews were carried out in four different locations across Europe. A total of 37 young people participated through purposive sampling. The study illustrates participants’ complex information pathways through which they consult multiple sources to reach the most trusted information source. The content analysis of the data showed that ascribed cognitive authority and affective factors such as confidentiality, privacy and empathy strongly determine the selection of an information source. The study observes the young participants’ dependency on networked and human sources for ease of access and reluctance to rely on mainstream media and textual information. The study has strong practical implications for designing information services and developing communication materials targeted at young people.

Close Look at the Concept of Authority in Information Literacy

The concept of authority—its definition and the consequences thereof—receives intense scrutiny in library scholarship. This article intervenes in that conversation by arguing for a particular approach to authority within librarianship. The article begins by reviewing the significant areas of contention within library scholarship on authority. It then analyzes the theoretical literature on authority—specifically cognitive authority, or the question of where we place our intellectual trust—from philosophy and information studies in order to explicate the concept. Finally, it builds on that explication to argue that librarians should embrace a fully constructionist view of cognitive authority, because committing to constructionism will make information literacy pedagogy both more rigorous and more just.

Nameless strangers, similar others: the affordances of a young people's anonymous online forum for health information practices

PurposeThe study examines how the technical features and associated social practices of an anonymous, text-based online forum intended for young people make it a unique platform for acquiring and sharing health information among peers.Design/methodology/approachThe features and content of a young people's section of a popular Finnish discussion forum were examined with a focus on health-related threads. Observational notes and thread content were analysed with a focus on the forum's affordances for health information practices.FindingsThe findings indicate that the forum's affordances including anonymity, persistence, searchability, cohesion and tolerance enabled the pooling of peer experiences, opinions and experience-based advice on health, rather than sharing factual information or embracing reciprocal discussion. As such, instead of competing for a cognitive authority position with medical authorities or offering emotional support like tight online support communities, the anonymous forum served as a platform for young people to gain information on others' experiences and opinions on sensitive, mundane and disnormative health issues and for reflecting their own lived experiences to those of others.Originality/valueThe study is original in its approach to examining the affordances of an online platform for health information practices. It helps in understanding young people's ways of using different resources to meet their diverse health information needs and the value of gaining access to experiential health information.

Does hatred rule political communication on social media? How do politicians talk about the EU on Facebook, and how do their followers react?

Abstract This paper focuses on the communication of four Slovak political leaders about the European Union’s agenda on Facebook and their followers’ interactions. As cognitive authorities of their followers, politicians directly impact public perception of current news by providing their own opinions and views. The paper studies the politicians’ followers’ engagement through manual qualitative sentiment analysis. The results suggest that while moderate Facebook users who support the EU are not active and do not show their support openly, users who condemn the EU express their negative sentiments regardless of the politician’s sentiment in the post. If a politician praises the EU, the followers criticise it. If a politician criticises the EU, followers agree with them. That leads us to the conclusion that social media dynamised the concept of cognitive authority.

Negotiating treatment and managing expectations in chronic kidney disease: A qualitative study in Argentina.

To describe how patients with CKD negotiated assigned responsibilities in the management of their disease, resulting in potential relational nonadherence. Qualitative study performed in two healthcare facilities in Buenos Aires, Argentina, including 50 patients and 14 healthcare providers. We conducted semistructured interviews which were analysed using a frame of reference with concepts of Burden of Treatment and Cognitive Authority theories. Adherence to treatment defined "good patients". Patients needed to negotiate starting treatment, its modality and dialysis schedule, although most patients felt they did not participate in the decision process and that providers did not acknowledge implications of these decisions on their routine. Some patients skipped dialysis if concerns were not attended. Regularly, patients negotiated frequency of visits, doses, dietary restrictions and redefined relationships with their support networks, sometimes with devasting effects. As a result of overwhelming uncertainty some patients refused enrolling into a transplant program. When the frequency of complications increased, patients considered abandoning dialysis. When patients perceived demands were excessive or conflicting, they entered into negotiations. Relationally induced nonadherence may arise when professionals do not or cannot enter into negotiations over patients' beliefs or knowledge about what is possible for them to do.

Языковая личность Платона и «пещерный» идеализм

The aim of the research is a linguo-semiotic reconstruction of the linguistic personality of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. The scientific novelty lies in the distinction of the dominant features of using speech means, which serve as source material for linguistic identity modelling based on the interpretative-semiotic approach, elements of novelty are contained in the principles of a discriminant analysis of the key episodes in Plato’s philosophical conception. The obtained results have shown the presence of typological features of the philosopher’s linguistic personality, which can be attributed to the logical-conservative type of a personality with ideological binarity elements. The content of the thinker’s speech portrait includes not only linguistic and communicative formats of discourse, but also ways of verbalizing philosophical concepts, as well as a phraseological corpus of statements. An important component of the philosopher’s communicative-speech portrait is general behavioural parameters of communication: confidence in himself and in the content of what was said; communicative self-control; decisiveness in the choice of language material for statements; cognitive and discursive authority.

The politics of ECB’s economic ideas and its implications for European economic governance: embedding a resilient EMU from the top-down?

By focusing on ECB’s economic policy thinking and its internal politics of ideas, this research aims to provide two contributions to knowledge. Firstly, it seeks to enhance scholarly understanding of ideational change inside international organisations (IOs). To do so, it asks (a) how ECB’s economic policy thinking has evolved since the outbreak of the euro crisis, and (b) what drives change in ECB’s ideas on the best way to deepen Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in its fiscal and economic realms. To answer these questions, fiscal policy, structural reforms and convergence towards resilient economic structures are used as case studies. The article argues that the interplay between changes in ECB’s leadership and internal policy discussions promoted by ideational entrepreneurs played a pivotal role in enabling new ideas to emerge inside the Bank. Secondly, by interrogating ECB’s ideas on the way to complete EMU, this research reflects on the future of the euro. It shares the view that the construction of cognitive authority within IOs is an ongoing political struggle over the ideas underpinning the everyday practice of global governance. By looking at the politics of ideas within the ECB, this article aims to contribute to the international political economy of EMU deepening.

Harvinaissairaiden käsityksiä sairaudesta ja sitä koskevan tiedon kognitiivisista auktoriteeteista

This article examines the illness representations as viewed by Finnish adults with a hereditary rare disease, and ways these representations manifest in their information behaviour, focusing on the cognitive authority of information sources. Data were gathered with five theme interviews and analysed using theory bound content analysis. The results show that doctors and researchers specialised in rare diseases had a central cognitive authority status among the patients. Additionally, personal expertise and experience, and peer information, particularly of practicalities, were also crucial. Information sources, and information provided by the sources, were significant in constructing illness representations and for controlling the disease. The core information sources and their evaluation varied in different disease phases and along with evolving illness identity. The results cannot be generalised to all Finnish adults with a rare disease but they add knowledge about patients’ views of information sources in a situation where information is scarce. Because of the general lack of information about rare diseases, information supply, information behaviour and information creation are examples of prolific study subjects.

The quest for sustainable futures: designing transformative learning spaces with multilingual Black, Brown, and Latinx young people through critical response-ability.

In an era of global climate change, intertwined with social and ecological predation, there is growing recognition of the importance of building socially, environmentally, culturally pluralistic, just and sustainable futures. Yet many of the calls for reform and discourses around sustainability are authored and defined through top-down approaches, by those who have power, privilege, and cognitive authority, and excludes the voices, identities, and epistemologies of those in the margins. In this paper we argue for the need to design and develop transformative learning ecologies that explicitly position the diverse voices of youth from nondominant communities as central to re-defining and re-envisioning relationally just, pluralistic, and sustainable futures. To this end, we seek to provide examples from participatory design-based learning ecologies to illustrate the centering of middle school youth voices and agencies from multilingual Black, Brown, and Latinx communities through critical response-ability. These examples highlight how these youth grapple with the uncertain landscapes of sustainability in their communities and provide counter-narratives to traditional deficit-based discourses and youth empowerment. We draw on what we have learned from multilingual youth to offer some suggestions for designing transformative learning ecologies situated within the framework of critical-response-ability in the quest for sustainable, thriving, and just futures.

Cognitive Authority as an Instance of Informational and Expert Power

Abstract The study elaborates the picture of the relationships between information and power by examining how informational and expert power appear in the characterizations of cognitive authority presented in the research literature. The study draws on the conceptual analysis of 25 key studies on the above issues. Mainly focusing on Patrick Wilson’s classic notion of cognitive authority, it was examined how informational power and expert power are constitutive of authority of this kind, and how people subject to the influence of cognitive authorities trust or challenge such authorities. The findings indicate that researchers have characterized the features of expert power inherent in cognitive authority by diverse qualifiers such as competence and trustworthiness of information sources considered authoritative. Informational power has mainly been approached in terms of irrefutability of individual arguments and facts offered by cognitive authorities. Both forms of power are persuasive in nature and information seekers can trust or challenge them by drawing on their experiential knowledge in particular. The findings also highlight the need to elaborate the construct of cognitive authority by rethinking its relevance in the networked information environments where the traditional picture of authoritative information sources is eroding.

“Let's keep this video as real as possible”: young video bloggers constructing cognitive authority through a health-related information creation process

PurposeThis study examines the information literacy practices of young video bloggers, focusing on the ways in which they construct their cognitive authority through a health-related information creation process.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws upon socially oriented information literacy research and nexus analysis as its methodological framework. Data, including YouTube videos, theme interviews and video diaries, were collected with three Finnish video bloggers and qualitatively analysed using nexus analytical concepts to describe the central elements of social action.FindingsThe study shows that video bloggers employ several information practices during the information creation process, including planning, information-seeking, organization, editing and presentation of information. They construct their cognitive authority in relation to their anticipated audience by grounding it on different types of information: experience-based, embodied and scientific. Trustworthiness, emphasized with authenticity and genuineness, and competence, based on experience, expertise and second-hand information, were recognized as key components of credibility in this context.Originality/valueThis study increases the understanding of the complex ways in which young people create information on social media and influence their audiences. The study contributes to information literacy research by offering insights into the under-researched area of information creation. It is among the few studies to examine cognitive authority construction in the information creation process. The notion of authority as constructed through trustworthiness and competence and grounded on different types of information, can be taken into account in practice by information professionals and educators when planning information literacy instruction.

Credibility in educational development: trustworthiness, expertise, and identification

ABSTRACT For educational developers (also called academic or faculty developers) to facilitate change toward effective teaching and learning practices at any level, they must build trust and communicate credible expertise, often while conveying ‘second-hand’ educational knowledge to academics who then act on that knowledge in their own work. In this conceptual article, we propose a new credibility framework, drawing on the intertwined literature on trust and trustworthiness, non-positional leadership, cognitive authority, and educational development. Our framework delineates six interrelated dimensions that developers employ to build trust and promote evidence-informed change in their local contexts.

Data (il)literacy education as a hidden curriculum of the datafication of education

This position paper uses the concept of “hidden curriculum” as a heuristic device to analyze everyday data-related practices in formal education. Grounded in a careful reading of the theoretical literature, this paper argues that the everyday data-related practices of contemporary education can be approached as functional forms of data literacy education: deeds with unintentional educational consequences for students’ relationships with data and datafication. More precisely, this paper suggests that everyday data-related practices represent data as cognitive authority and naturalize the routines of all-pervading data collection. These routines lead to what is here referred to as “data (il)literacy” – an uncritical, one-dimensional understanding of data and datafication. Since functional data (il)literacy education takes place subconsciously, it can be conceptualized as a form of hidden curriculum, an idea that refers to lessons taught and learned but not consciously intended to be so.

Identity transformation, stigma power, and mental wellbeing of Chinese eSports professional players

In China, the expanding eSports culture has produced a vast cohort of video-game players whose peak age ranges between 16 and 22 years. This study explores the dynamic identity transformation and mental wellbeing development processes of eSports professionals in a risk-prone society. It comprises in-depth interviews with players, coaches, managers, and commentators working in 15 top eSports clubs in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou, Suzhou, and Chengdu. We find eSports is perceived as non-secure, casual, and irregular by the Chinese public and that the mental changes experienced by eSports professionals throughout their careers have been significantly influenced by a more sophisticated form of state power and social norms, including cultural cognitive beliefs, economic stimulation, and authority attributions.

Cognitive Authority and the Constraint of Attitude Change in Groups

Are individuals’ attitudes constrained such that it is difficult to change one attitude without also changing other attitudes? Given a lack of longitudinal studies in real-world settings, it remains unclear if individuals have coherent attitude systems at all—and, if they do, what produces attitude constraint. I argue and show that groups can endogenously produce attitude constraint via cognitive authorities. Within groups, cognitive authorities explicitly link attitudes and generate feelings of connectedness among members, thereby facilitating the interpersonal processing of attitudes. Using data on interpersonal sentiment relations and attitude changes among members of intentional communities, I find cognitive authorities constrain attitudes via two mechanisms: (1) interpersonal tensions when attitudes and sentiment relations are misaligned (i.e., balance dynamics), and (2) social influence processes leading to attitude changes that are concordant with the group’s attitude system (i.e., constraint satisfaction). These findings imply that attitude change models based exclusively on interpersonal contagion or individual drives for cognitive consistency overlook important ways group structures affect how individuals feel and think.

Skills and household financial decision-making in Indonesia

PurposeThis study examines whether financial literacy is a relevant factor that determines authority in household financial decision-making, an area that is often viewed as boring, difficult and full of uncertainties. Cognitive ability and personality traits are also included as additional explanatory variables.Design/methodology/approachThe logistic regression technique was applied using a sample of more than 2,300 microfinance institutions' clients in three provinces in Indonesia.FindingsThis study finds that financial literacy correlates positively with authority in household financial decision-making only among men. This does not mean that financial literacy is irrelevant for women's agency, since the skill might be important for authorities in other decision-making areas, including those outside households. Meanwhile, the relationship between cognitive ability and household financial decision-making authority is more universal.Research limitations/implicationsThis study does not collect information on the levels of financial literacy of other household members and does not capture respondents' perceptions of household financial decision-making.Social implicationsThe overall low level of financial literacy calls for the need for more targeted efforts to address this issue by policymakers. Education policy should also be designed to improve cognitive ability, as this ability is important for human agency and well-being.Originality/valueHousehold decision-making has received significant attention in the literature. Authority in household decision-making is important because it represents a person's agency and has a profound impact on well-being. To the best of author's knowledge, studies on the importance of skills in household financial decision-making are very limited.

Understanding fake news during the Covid-19 health crisis from the perspective of information behaviour: The case of Spain

The health crisis brought about by Covid-19 has generated a heightened need for information as a response to a situation of uncertainty and high emotional load, in which fake news and other informative content have grown dramatically. The aim of this work is to delve into the understanding of fake news from the perspective of information behaviour by analysing a sample of fake news items that were spread in Spain during the Covid-19 health crisis. A sample of 242 fake news items was collected from the Maldita.es website and analysed according to the criteria of cognitive and affective authority, interactivity, themes and potential danger. The results point to a practical absence of indicators of cognitive authority (53.7%), while the affective authority of these news items is built through mechanisms of discrediting people, ideas or movements (40.7%) and, secondarily, the use of offensive or coarse language (17.7%) and comparison or reference to additional information sources (26.6%). Interactivity features allow commenting in 24.3% of the cases. The dominant theme is society (43.1%), followed by politics (26.4%) and science (23.6%). Finally, fake news, for the most part, does not seem to pose any danger to the health or safety of people – the harm it causes is intangible and moral. The author concludes by highlighting the importance of a culture of civic values to combat fake news.

When the Client Is a Former Auditor: Auditees' Expert Knowledge and Social Capital as Threats to Staff Auditors' Operational Independence

ABSTRACTAuditees can play an active role in influencing staff auditors' professional judgment and skepticism. Yet, although it constitutes one of the main threats to auditor independence, very little is known about the means and extent of auditees' power during the audit engagement. To address this knowledge gap, our study focuses on a specific category of auditees, namely, auditees who have worked as auditors in large accounting firms. We interviewed 36 of these auditees and triangulated our findings with 11 interviews conducted with auditors. At the theoretical level, we conceptualize auditees' influence over auditors as intentional and active through the notion of “social power.” Overall, our analysis shows that the efficacy of auditees' power during the engagement materializes through the mobilization of two main power resources developed during their time at the firms: (i) expert knowledge of auditing techniques and (ii) social capital. On the one hand, relying on their cognitive authority, auditees' employ three different power strategies to constrain staff auditors' operational independence: stage‐setting, teaching, and questioning. On the other hand, auditees' social capital can support the use of two additional strategies: attracting and monitoring. Our triangulation analysis confirms our findings and suggests that auditors may be aware of the threats to independence that auditee expertise and social capital pose. By focusing on auditees' agentic capabilities—that is, individuals' capabilities to consciously exert influence over the course of events—we reinterpret the pressures exerted by clients on auditors as the product of strategic actions and discuss substantive consequences for independence risk.