More and more, people are abandoning the active pursuit of news, assuming instead that important information will be pushed to them via their social media networks. This approach to news makes people susceptible to the vast amounts of misinformation online, yet research on the effects of this kind of engagement is mixed. More research is needed on technology incidental learning effects, defined as changes in knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors as a result of being exposed to information while pursuing goals other than learning (e.g., entertainment). In this study, we examined how 51 college students responded to incidental exposure to accurate and inaccurate COVID-19 information delivered via a simulated social media environment. Participants' verbalizations during think-aloud protocols indicated numerous mental processes including cognition, metacognition, epistemic cognition, motivation, and emotions. Positively valenced mental processing was more often expressed with accurate COVID-19 information and negatively valenced mental processing was more often verbalized with misinformation. Negatively valenced evaluations of knowledge claims and sources predicted less engagement with COVID-19 misinformation posts. However, in many cases the relations among verbalized mental processing and behavioral responses were complex or non-obvious. For example, participants' positive metacognition and epistemic cognition verbalizations decreased their likelihood of engaging with accurate COVID-19 information, whereas positive interest was associated with an increased likelihood of engaging with misinformation. Our findings have implications for how to accurately infer people's beliefs and intentions from their social media behaviors and how to design interventions to help people be more active and thoughtful consumers of online information.

中文翻译：

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他们在想什么？探索大学生关于社交媒体上的 COVID-19 (Mis) 信息的心理处理和决策。


人们越来越多地放弃对新闻的积极追求，转而认为重要的信息将通过社交媒体网络推送给他们。这种新闻方式使人们容易受到网上大量错误信息的影响，但对这种参与效果的研究却褒贬不一。需要对技术附带学习效应进行更多研究，其定义为在追求学习以外的目标（例如娱乐）时接触信息而导致的知识、态度、信仰和行为的变化。在这项研究中，我们研究了 51 名大学生对通过模拟社交媒体环境偶然接触到准确和不准确的 COVID-19 信息的反应。参与者在有声思考过程中的言语表明了许多心理过程，包括认知、元认知、认知认知、动机和情绪。正价心理处理通常用准确的 COVID-19 信息来表达，而负价心理处理则更常用错误信息来表达。对知识主张和来源的负价评估预计人们对 COVID-19 错误信息帖子的参与度会减少。然而，在许多情况下，言语心理处理和行为反应之间的关系是复杂的或不明显的。例如，参与者的积极元认知和认知认知语言表达降低了他们接触准确的 COVID-19 信息的可能性，而积极的兴趣则与接触错误信息的可能性增加相关。 我们的研究结果对于如何从人们的社交媒体行为中准确推断他们的信念和意图，以及如何设计干预措施来帮助人们成为更积极、更周到的在线信息消费者具有重要意义。