Identity-protective Cognition Research Articles

Indonesia Readiness to Face Social Engineering Attacks with Deepfake Technology

Theoretical Framework: In the era of advanced digitalization, concerns about false information and social engineering attacks are currently the main concerns in the field of information security. Information security relies on users' recognition and awareness of the risks associated with social engineering attacks. Identity-protective cognition theory , Information security, social engineering attacks, regulations in Indonesia are used as the underlying theories. Purpose: This research aims to analyze Indonesia’s preparedness to face social engineering attacks with deepfake technology. Method: The research method used in this research is a qualitative method. Activities in data analysis are data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing or verification. Result: Indonesia already has legal regulations that can take action against perpetrators who have abused deepfakes and inflicted losses on their victims, especially if they contain elements of decency. Conclusion: Law enforcement in Indonesia has actually been regulated in the Criminal Code, the Pornography Law, and the Electronic Information and Transaction Law. However, in order to complement its protection and law enforcement, Indonesia can consider the regulations that are being proposed by the United States by specifically regulating deepfakes and also consider media companies to apply content moderation to deepfake material on its platform.

Science beliefs, political ideology, and cognitive sophistication.

Some theoretical models assume that a primary source of contention surrounding science belief is political and that partisan disagreement drives beliefs; other models focus on basic science knowledge and cognitive sophistication, arguing that they facilitate proscientific beliefs. To test these competing models, we identified a range of controversial issues subject to potential ideological disagreement and examined the roles of political ideology, science knowledge, and cognitive sophistication on science beliefs. Our results indicate that there was surprisingly little partisan disagreement on a wide range of contentious scientific issues. We also found weak evidence for identity-protective cognition (where cognitive sophistication exacerbates partisan disagreement); instead, cognitive sophistication (i.e., reasoning ability) was generally associated with proscience beliefs. In two studies focusing on anthropogenic climate change, we found that increased political motivations did not increase polarization among individuals who are higher in cognitive sophistication, which indicates that increased political motivations might not have as straightforward an impact on science beliefs as has been assumed in the literature. Finally, our findings indicate that basic science knowledge is the most consistent predictor of people's beliefs about science across a wide range of issues. These results suggest that educators and policymakers should focus on increasing basic science literacy and critical thinking rather than on the ideologies that purportedly divide people. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Communicating CRISPR: Challenges and opportunities in engaging the public.

CRISPR technologies are advancing at a dizzying pace, and emerging cultural, sociopolitical, ethical, and legal implications continue to pose new challenges for public engagement. Recent calls for public engagement and dialogue on CRISPR applications stress the importance of nuanced thinking and responsible communication. In this chapter, we review public opinion research and find that a comprehensive and clear picture of global views on CRISPR is missing but is necessary to build the foundation for effective public engagement programs. We recommend community-based-participatory research as an inclusive and effective framework for shared knowledge production and decision-making practices for scientific experts and science communicators to engage in genuine and meaningful dialogue with community members in making informed consideration for important value-laden decisions. In response to the politicization of science, this chapter offers strategic communication techniques that can help those facilitating public engagement of CRISPR-based technologies keep cognitive biases, such as identity protective cognition, motivated reasoning, and confirmation bias, at bay.

Utilitarian and Ideological Determinants of Attitudes towards Immigration: Germany Before and After the “Migration Crisis”

Explanations of attitudes towards immigration include those that take a utilitarian perspective, focusing on immigration’s real-world impacts, and others that look at immigration attitudes from the point of view of ideological affiliation. Focusing on the German “migration crisis” as a case study, this paper seeks to disentangle the roles of these types of explanation, placing an emphasis on possible connections between them. Specifically, the paper studies whether and to what extent perceptions of immigration impacts are related to people’s ideological position through identity-protective cognition, implying an indirect channel through which ideology may shape attitudes toward immigration policies. Using data for 2014 – 2018, the paper finds that attitudes toward immigration were more strongly related to immigration’s perceived economic and cultural impacts than to ideological position, even accounting for dependence of perceptions on ideology. Ideology-dependence of impact perceptions existed with respect to both economic and cultural impacts but was stronger with respect to the latter than the former. After the migration crisis, perceptions of economic impacts became less important in shaping immigration attitudes relative to perceptions of cultural impacts, and the latter became more ideology-dependent.

How climate-friendly behavior relates to moral identity and identity-protective cognition: Evidence from the European social surveys

The paper studies the role for climate-friendly behavior of individuals' moral identity, conceptualized in terms of the moral foundations identified by moral psychologists (Care, Fairness, Liberty, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity). Two relationships are distinguished: a direct relationship between moral identity and behavior at given cognitions of climate change impacts and effectiveness of individual action, and an indirect relationship through an association between moral identity and these cognitions. Using data from the European Social Surveys, the paper finds that endorsement of the individual-focused (universalist) moral foundations (Care, Fairness, Liberty) and endorsement of the group-focused (parochial) moral foundations (Loyalty, Authority, Sanctity) are both related to climate friendly behavior through the direct channel, the former 1.5 times stronger than the latter. In addition, individual-focused moral foundations are related to climate-friendly behavior through their association with the cognition of bad impacts of climate change and of effectiveness of own action. The indirect relationships amount to up to one third of the direct relationships. While being of a correlational nature, the findings are consistent with the idea that individuals' moral identity may influence climate-friendly behavior both directly and indirectly, by shaping behavior-relevant cognitions.

Conspiracy Theories in the Classroom: Problems and Potential Solutions

Conspiracy narratives and speculative rumors of a conspiracist nature are intermittently popular in youth culture, as well as in political discourse. The general motivations of conspiracy beliefs relate to essential needs (for knowledge, to feel safe and secure, to feel good about oneself and one’s group), but evidence shows these needs are not actually served by conspiracy beliefs. Conspiracy theories tend to be explanations that conflict with best academic knowledge, and belief in them leads to less support for democratic processes and institutions. They play a role in political polarization, and they are used in identity-protective cognition. They may both express and arouse “strong feelings and divide communities and society”. Conspiracy theories as a general topic thus satisfy general criteria for controversial issues. At the same time, they are particularly interesting because they hover between the superficially and the inherently controversial: although in practice often resistant to contradictory evidence, they generally appeal to reason and evidence. While they sometimes are rooted in deep religious and religion-like beliefs, we argue that this makes them good cases for practicing analytical skills that could better serve all the needs above. Since cases and topics can cover the gamut from the subject-related to the cross-curricular and civic behavior, and the skills should be broadly transferable, using conspiracy theories as a topic has a high possible upside. However, conspiracy theories in a school setting have not yet been a topic of much research. This article takes as its starting point interviews with teachers and preliminary investigations of adolescents, before presenting an outline of possible didactic tools for teachers based on the general findings of effective interventions on conspiracy beliefs and related issues.

Fake news, fast and slow: Deliberation reduces belief in false (but not true) news headlines.

What role does deliberation play in susceptibility to political misinformation and "fake news"? The Motivated System 2 Reasoning (MS2R) account posits that deliberation causes people to fall for fake news, because reasoning facilitates identity-protective cognition and is therefore used to rationalize content that is consistent with one's political ideology. The classical account of reasoning instead posits that people ineffectively discern between true and false news headlines when they fail to deliberate (and instead rely on intuition). To distinguish between these competing accounts, we investigated the causal effect of reasoning on media truth discernment using a 2-response paradigm. Participants (N = 1,635 Mechanical Turkers) were presented with a series of headlines. For each, they were first asked to give an initial, intuitive response under time pressure and concurrent working memory load. They were then given an opportunity to rethink their response with no constraints, thereby permitting more deliberation. We also compared these responses to a (deliberative) 1-response baseline condition where participants made a single choice with no constraints. Consistent with the classical account, we found that deliberation corrected intuitive mistakes: Participants believed false headlines (but not true headlines) more in initial responses than in either final responses or the unconstrained 1-response baseline. In contrast-and inconsistent with the Motivated System 2 Reasoning account-we found that political polarization was equivalent across responses. Our data suggest that, in the context of fake news, deliberation facilitates accurate belief formation and not partisan bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

An Investigation of Beliefs, Information and the Halo Effect in Electoral Decision Making

Rational ignorance suggests that voters largely ignore a lot of information while voting due to the high cost of attaining and processing the information. It is further suggested that rational voters do not vote to affect election results but to express opinions. It is thus likely that cognitive biases shape electoral decision-making. The Halo effect, for instance, extrapolates information in one domain to another and helps voters avoid processing extra information. In this paper, we investigate the conditions under which extra information is processed or ignored, and first impressions are generalised. We find, through a Randomised Control Experiment, that new and weakly formed political beliefs also have effects like strongly held political beliefs, on information provided later. In particular, the study presented picture-information about candidates, either accompanying or not accompanying text-information. Additional text-information did not significantly change voter-choice when the text information reaffirmed picture-based preferences but did significantly change voter-choice when it contradicted picture-based preferences. These results are viewed from the perspective of both the Identity-Protective Cognition Thesis and the Halo effect, thus hinting that the two may be connected, an insight that is largely missing in the previous literature.

Whoever Has Will be Given More: The Effect of Performance Information on Frontline Employees’ Support for Managerial Policy Initiatives

AbstractResearch has demonstrated how policy changes are bound to fail without the support of frontline employees. This study examines how performance information influences frontline employees’ support for managerial policy initiatives. We develop hypotheses stating that the exposure to positive and negative organizational performance scores compared to average scores increases frontline employees’ support for managerial policy initiatives and thus facilitate policy change. To test our hypotheses, we conduct a survey experiment on more than 1,500 social caseworkers working in Danish employment agencies. The results show that while the provision of positive organizational scores increases caseworkers’ support for managerial policy initiatives, there is no direct effect following the exposure of negative performance scores. However, additional exploratory analysis reveals that the caseworkers’ experienced work pressure moderates the effect of positive and negative performance information. Specifically, caseworkers that experience a high work pressure are more inclined to support managerial policy initiatives following positive and negative performance scores. Furthermore, the explorative analysis indicates that the caseworkers tend to ignore negative performance information, which strongly suggests that poor performance scores trigger identity-protective cognition. Overall, the study advances our understanding of the link between performance information and support of policy changes on the frontline of public services by showing how different performance scores influence employees’ support for managerial policy initiatives.

Misinformation and Identity-Protective Cognition

This paper synthesizes existing work on misinformation relating to policy-relevant facts. It argues that misinformation has the greatest power to mislead when it interacts with identity-protective cognition.

Simplicity and scientific progress in the philosophy of Philipp Frank

Philipp Frank was a central figure in the Vienna Circle, but his ideas vary significantly from those of his peers. Despite the growing body of literature on Frank, his account of simplicity has not yet received the attention it deserves even though it succinctly captures many of the most distinctive elements of Frank’s philosophy of science. This is because Frank’s account of simplicity is not restricted to the epistemology of scientific theories; his treatment of simplicity provides us with a way of accounting for the influence of social and political agendas on the rejection of scientific theories. In this paper I trace the development of Frank’s account of simplicity from 1947 to 1954 and explain how social and political considerations came to inform his mature account in 1954. Furthermore, I demonstrate the continued relevance of Frank’s thought by showing that it can be helpfully applied to a contemporary issue associated with the rejection of scientific theories, identity protective cognition.

Misconceptions, Misinformation, and the Logic of Identity-Protective Cognition

This paper supplies a compact synthesis of the empirical literature on misconceptions of and misinformation about decision-relevant science. The incidence and impact of misconceptions and misperceptions, the article argues, are highly conditional on identity protective cognition. Identity protective cognition refers to the tendency of culturally diverse individuals to selectively credit and dismiss evidence in patterns that reflect the beliefs that predominate in their group. On issues that provoke identity-protective cognition, the members of the public most adept at avoiding misconceptions of science are nevertheless the most culturally polarized. Individuals are also more likely to accept misinformation and resist the correction of it when that misinformation is identity-affirming rather than identity-threatening. Effectively counteracting these dynamics, the paper argues, requires more than simply supplying citizens with correct information. It demands in addition the protection of the science communication environment from toxic social meanings that fuse competing understandings of fact with diverse citizens’ cultural identities.

Processing the papal encyclical through perceptual filters: Pope Francis, identity-protective cognition, and climate change concern

Previous research suggests that when individuals encounter new information, they interpret it through perceptual ‘filters’ of prior beliefs, relevant social identities, and messenger credibility. In short, evaluations are not based solely on message accuracy, but also on the extent to which the message and messenger are amenable to the values of one’s social groups. Here, we use the release of Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical as the context for a natural experiment to examine the role of prior values in climate change cognition. Based on our analysis of panel data collected before and after the encyclical’s release, we find that political ideology moderated views of papal credibility on climate change for those participants who were aware of the encyclical. We also find that, in some contexts, non-Catholics who were aware of the encyclical granted Pope Francis additional credibility compared to the non-Catholics who were unaware of it, yet Catholics granted the Pope high credibility regardless of encyclical awareness. Importantly, papal credibility mediated the conditional relationships between encyclical awareness and acceptance of the Pope’s messages on climate change. We conclude by discussing how our results provide insight into cognitive processing of new information about controversial issues.

Motivated numeracy and enlightened self-government

AbstractWhy does public conflict over societal risks persist in the face of compelling and widely accessible scientific evidence? We conducted an experiment to probe two alternative answers: the ‘science comprehension thesis’ (SCT), which identifies defects in the public's knowledge and reasoning capacities as the source of such controversies; and the ‘identity-protective cognition thesis’ (ICT), which treats cultural conflict asdisablingthe faculties that members of the public use to make sense of decision-relevant science. In our experiment, we presented subjects with a difficult problem that turned on their ability to draw valid causal inferences from empirical data. As expected, subjects highest in numeracy – a measure of the ability and disposition to make use of quantitative information – did substantially better than less numerate ones when the data were presented as results from a study of a new skin rash treatment. Also as expected, subjects’ responses became politically polarized – and even less accurate – when the same data were presented as results from the study of a gun control ban. But contrary to the prediction of SCT, such polarization did not abate among subjects highest in numeracy; instead, itincreased. This outcome supported ICT, which predicted that more numerate subjects would use their quantitative-reasoning capacity selectively to conform their interpretation of the data to the result most consistent with their political outlooks. We discuss the theoretical and practical significance of these findings.

The expressive rationality of inaccurate perceptions.

This commentary uses the dynamic of identity-protective cognition to pose a friendly challenge to Jussim (2012). Like other forms of information processing, this one is too readily characterized as a bias. It is no mistake, however, to view identity-protective cognition as generating inaccurate perceptions. The "bounded rationality" paradigm incorrectly equates rationality with forming accurate beliefs. But so does Jussim's critique.

Communicating the Scientific Consensus on Human-Caused Climate Change is an Effective and Depolarizing Public Engagement Strategy: Experimental Evidence from a Large National Replication Study

This experimental study evaluated whether communicating the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is likely to be effective with the American public. Drawing on a large national sample (N = 6,301), we set out to replicate and extend the findings of van der Linden et al. (2015). Consistent with the original study, we find robust and replicated evidence that communicating the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change leads to significant and substantial changes in perceived scientific agreement among conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike. These findings prove robust, even among those predisposed to receive counter-attitudinal information (e.g., Fox-news watchers, global warming skeptics). Further, among conservatives, we find the greatest change in perceived consensus among the subset whose own friends and family are least likely to believe in human-caused global warming. In short, we find little evidence of identity-protective cognition and no evidence of belief polarization across these groups. We further find that communicating the scientific consensus has (positive) direct effects (across the political spectrum) on belief that climate change is happening, human-caused, and a serious threat that requires societal action. We also find that these direct effects are mediated by changes in perceived scientific consensus. In other words, public perception of the scientific consensus is an important gateway cognition. Results also show that belief in the scientific consensus is more influential in driving public engagement than perceived consensus among other groups (e.g., Americans). Lastly, although public understanding of the scientific consensus is low, we find that conservatives and moderates are significantly less aware of the scientific consensus than liberals.

Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government

Why does public conflict over societal risks persist in the face of compelling and widely accessible scientific evidence? We conducted an experiment to probe two alternative answers: the “Science Comprehension Thesis” (SCT), which identifies defects in the public’s knowledge and reasoning capacities as the source of such controversies; and the “Identity-protective Cognition Thesis” (ICT) which treats cultural conflict as disabling the faculties that members of the public use to make sense of decision-relevant science. In our experiment, we presented subjects with a difficult problem that turned on their ability to draw valid causal inferences from empirical data. As expected, subjects highest in Numeracy — a measure of the ability and disposition to make use of quantitative information — did substantially better than less numerate ones when the data were presented as results from a study of a new skin-rash treatment. Also as expected, subjects’ responses became politically polarized — and even less accurate — when the same data were presented as results from the study of a gun-control ban. But contrary to the prediction of SCT, such polarization did not abate among subjects highest in Numeracy; instead, it increased. This outcome supported ICT, which predicted that more Numerate subjects would use their quantitative-reasoning capacity selectively to conform their interpretation of the data to the result most consistent with their political outlooks. We discuss the theoretical and practical significance of these findings.

Bringing ideology in: the conservative white male effect on worry about environmental problems in the USA

Extending existing scholarship on the white male effect in risk perception, we examine whether conservative white males (CWMs) are less worried about the risks of environmental problems than are other adults in the US general public. We draw theoretical and analytical guidance from the identity-protective cognition thesis explaining the white male effect and from recent political psychology scholarship documenting the heightened system-justification tendencies of political conservatives. We utilize public opinion data from nine Gallup surveys between 2001 and 2010, focusing on both a single-item indicator and a composite measure of worry about environmental problems. We find that CWMs indeed have significantly lower worry about environmental problems than do other Americans. Furthermore, the results of our multivariate regression models reveal that this CWMs effect remains significant when controlling for the direct effects of political ideology, race, and gender and the effects of nine social, demographic, and temporal control variables – as well as the effect of individuals generalized (nonenvironmental) risk perceptions. We conclude that the white male effect is due largely to CWMs, and that the latters low level of concern with environmental risks is likely driven by their social commitment to prevent new environmental regulations and repeal existing ones.

Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States

We examine whether conservative white males are more likely than are other adults in the U.S. general public to endorse climate change denial. We draw theoretical and analytical guidance from the identity-protective cognition thesis explaining the white male effect and from recent political psychology scholarship documenting the heightened system-justification tendencies of political conservatives. We utilize public opinion data from ten Gallup surveys from 2001 to 2010, focusing specifically on five indicators of climate change denial. We find that conservative white males are significantly more likely than are other Americans to endorse denialist views on all five items, and that these differences are even greater for those conservative white males who self-report understanding global warming very well. Furthermore, the results of our multivariate logistic regression models reveal that the conservative white male effect remains significant when controlling for the direct effects of political ideology, race, and gender as well as the effects of nine control variables. We thus conclude that the unique views of conservative white males contribute significantly to the high level of climate change denial in the United States.

Erratum

Journal of Empirical Legal StudiesVolume 5, Issue 3 p. 645-645 Free Access Erratum This article corrects the following: Culture and Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining the White-Male Effect in Risk Perception Dan M. Kahan, Donald Braman, John Gastil, Paul Slovic, C. K. Mertz, Volume 4Issue 3Journal of Empirical Legal Studies pages: 465-505 First Published online: September 11, 2007 First published: 05 September 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-1461.2008.00136.xAboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat In the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 4:3 (2007), the following errors were published in “Culture and Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining the White-Male Effect in Risk Perception”: The Note to Table 2 should read: Dependent variable is Environmental-Risk Perception. Coefficients are semi-partial correlation coefficients. ***p ≤ 0.05; *p ≤ 0.10. For the religious affiliation dummy variables, Protestantism is the reference category. Figure 6 curves were mislabeled. The correct labels should read: Nonwhite women: y = 3.1 − .14 × Individualism White women: y = 4.04 − .58 × Individualism Nonwhite men: y = 4.61 − .73 × Individualism White men: y = 5 − .95 × Individualism Reference: Dan M. Kahan, Donald Braman, John Gastil, Paul Slovic, C. K. Mertz (2007) Culture and Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining the White-Male Effect in Risk Perception. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 4 (3), 465– 505 doi:10.1111/j.1740-1461.2007.00097.x Wiley Online LibraryGoogle Scholar Volume5, Issue3September 2008Pages 645-645 ReferencesRelatedInformation