Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 18, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: May 19, 2018 - Jul 14, 2018
Date Accepted: Dec 10, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
How Confidence in Prior Attitudes, Social Tag Popularity, and Source Credibility Shape Confirmation Bias: A Randomized Controlled Web-Based Study about Attitudes towards Antidepressants and Psychotherapy in a Representative German Sample
ABSTRACT
Background:
In health-related, web-based information search, people should select information in line with expert (vs. non-expert) information, independent of their prior attitudes and consequent confirmation bias.
Objective:
We investigate confirmation bias in mental health-related information search, particularly (1) if high confidence worsens confirmation bias, (2) if social tags eliminate the influence of prior attitudes, and (3) if people successfully distinguish high and low source credibility.
Methods:
520 participants of a representative sample of the German online population were recruited via a panel company. 250 (48%) completed the fully automated study. Participants provided prior attitudes about antidepressants and psychotherapy. We manipulated (1) confidence in prior attitudes. When participants searched for blog posts about the treatment of depression, we manipulated (2) tag popularity–either psychotherapy or antidepressant tags were more popular, and (3) source credibility with banners indicating high or low expertise of the tagging community We measured tag- and blog post selection, and treatment efficacy ratings after navigation.
Results:
Tag popularity predicted the proportion of selected antidepressant tags (beta = 0.44, SE = .11, P < .001), and blog posts (beta = 0.46, SE = .11, P < .001). When confidence was low (-1 SD), participants selected more blog posts consistent with prior attitudes (beta = -0.26, SE = 0.05, P < .001). Moreover, when confidence was low (-1 SD) and source credibility was high (+1 SD), the efficacy ratings of attitude consistent treatments increased (beta = 0.34, SE = 0.13, P = .01).
Conclusions:
We found correlational support for defense motivation account underlying confirmation bias in the mental health-related search context. That is, participants tended to select information that supported their prior attitudes, which very not in line with current scientific evidence. Implications for presenting persuasive web-based information are discussed.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
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