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？探索大学生对社交媒体上 COVID-19 （错误）信息的心理处理和决策。


越来越多的人放弃了对新闻的积极追求，取而代之的是假设重要信息会通过他们的社交媒体网络推送给他们。这种新闻处理方式使人们容易受到网上大量错误信息的影响，但关于这种参与效果的研究喜忧参半。需要对技术偶然学习效应进行更多研究，该技术被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、信念和行为的变化。在这项研究中，我们检查了 51 名大学生如何应对偶然接触通过模拟社交媒体环境提供的准确和不准确的 COVID-19 信息。参与者在发声思考协议期间的言语表达表明了许多心理过程，包括认知、元认知、认识认知、动机和情绪。积极价值的心理处理更常用准确的 COVID-19 信息来表达，而消价值的心理处理更常用错误信息来表达。对知识声明和来源的负评价预测对 COVID-19 错误信息帖子的参与度较低。然而，在许多情况下，语言化心理处理和行为反应之间的关系是复杂或不明显的。例如，参与者的积极元认知和认知语言化降低了他们参与准确 COVID-19 信息的可能性，而积极兴趣与参与错误信息的可能性增加有关。 我们的研究结果对如何从人们的社交媒体行为中准确推断人们的信念和意图，以及如何设计干预措施来帮助人们成为更积极、更深思熟虑的在线信息消费者具有重要意义。