2024/07/01 by Adiba Mahbub Proma, Proma, Adiba Mahbub, Neeley Pate +13 · 1 voice
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Educational Strategies and Epistemologies #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Social and Intergroup Psychology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1109/taffc.2025.3650069
openalex created_date 2025/12/31 · openalex publication_date 2025/12/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
People often stick to their existing beliefs, ignoring contradicting evidence or only interacting with those who reinforce their views. This tendency, referred to as being rigid in one's beliefs, is often driven by one's emotional connection to their beliefs and worsened by social media platforms which promote highly personalized content to maximize user engagement. As increased belief rigidity can negatively impact decisions, it is crucial to study and design interventions to reduce belief rigidity in online social networks. We design an experimental framework to passively infer belief rigidity and empirically quantify the effects of introducing randomness into the network structure as an intervention strategy. We recruit 163 participants into two conditions: one emulating traditional online platforms and the other more random. Our results suggest that individuals' beliefs are influenced by peer opinions, regardless of whether those opinions are similar to or differ from their own. Moreover, people are more likely to incorporate peers with (slightly) differing opinions into their networks when the recommendations are more randomized. Our findings highlight the need for future exploration into how design interventions can shape people's psycho-social functionalities in online social platforms.