This week…
When I first wrote my research proposal on misinformation in science news for the Wolfson Press Fellowship, it was 2017. I thought I had a good pitch, I was awarded a spot in the next cohort after all, which I deferred to be able to vote in the now-historic 2018 Malaysian general election. The following year, two years after I began work on the project, I officially started my work. The first thing my programme directory did was to make me look into two often overlooked areas: the business models of big tech, and the psychology behind misinformation. Suddenly, I spent my whole Easter term speaking more to economists and psychologists than I ever could’ve imagined. To this day, I take a similar approach for every story and paper published on misinformation in the news.
On that note, here’s a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.
Aaron Rodgers and the ascent of the Bro Scientist
Jason Rogers in his newsletter, The Mandate Letter, which is about the evolving state of men and masculinities:
If you aren’t familiar with Aaron Rodgers, suffice it to say that, in the NFL, he’s big deal. The Super Bowling-winning, 3-time MVP quarterback is also a well-known media darling, having appeared in TV ads for Pizza Hut and State Farm. However, he recently put his career in limbo and caused a cultural firestorm after making false claims that he was vaccinated. After only undergoing homeopathic treatments, he told interviews he was “immunized,” and then contracted COVID requiring him to sit out of an important game. The NFL does not have a vaccine mandate for all players; however, Rodgers violated protocol by participating in many team-sponsored activities, including media interviews, unmasked.
More interesting than the event itself, however, has been Rodgers’s reaction. He’s been quoted as saying that the “woke mob” is out to get him and had cited a variety of dubious or outright debunked information in podcast interviews (e.g., ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and concerns about vaccines and male fertility, to name a few). It’s clear that Rodgers has been doing his own research, a phrase that is often paired with conspiratorial claims. Where he gets his information is both hard and easy to say. The conservative podcast-sphere has vehemently pushed these theories despite the fact that some hosts have recanted their views after deadly confrontations with the virus. Plus the internet is just one big terrible black hole from which you can scoop all kinds of muck that already confirms your pre-existing view.
However, the Rodgers event represents is an exacerbation of a long-standing trend — bro science. Let me explain.
Worth reading in full. Rogers is, after all, an athlete himself—an Olympic medalist, no less.
The ‘psychology of regret’ helps explain why vaccine mandates work ($)
Adam Galinsky for The Washington Post:
The psychology of regret can also help explain why coronavirus vaccine mandates have generally been so effective. Despite the many assertions that mandates would lead to mass resignations, the employees of many organizations ultimately got on board. Consider New York City’s largest police union, which fought such mandates in court and argued that the police department would lose thousands of officers. In the end, out of a force of about 35,000 officers, fewer than three dozen refused the vaccine. Similarly, of the 67,000 employees at United Airlines facing a mandate, only 320 refused to get vaccinated.
The collapse of resistance to the mandates, following fierce pledges to quit, is puzzling until you consider the psychology of regret. When people don’t feel the weight of making their own choice, they aren’t as tormented by the anticipated negative outcomes of their decision. Mandates externalize responsibility for getting vaccinated — shifting it from the self to others — making it easier to go forward with getting a shot.
There are two sides to every coin, hm?
First steps to getting started in open source research
Giancarlo Fiorella for Bellingcat:
Open source research has “come of age”, according to a recent article published by The Economist. What was once the niche realm of a relatively small number of individuals with free time and obsessive internet habits is now informing research and journalism in a wide range of fields and institutions. It’s hard to imagine a better time to roll up your sleeves and set off on the path of the open source researcher.
The promise of open source research is that anyone — not just journalists or researchers at select institutions — can contribute to investigations that uncover wrongdoing and hold perpetrators of crimes and atrocities to account.
When we say “anyone”, we mean anyone: if you’ve an internet connection, free time, and a stubborn commitment to getting the facts right, then you too, can be an open source researcher.
It’s a double-edged sword, but I guess it’s kind of like the psychology behind teaching people how to create fake stories: They stop spreading misinformation (Roozenbeek and van der Linden, 2018).
What I read, watch and listen to…
I’m reading No time to die: An in-depth analysis of James Bond’s exposure to infectious agents, a paper by Wouter Graumans, William J.R. Stone, and Teun Bouseman published in the journal Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease.
I’m listening to Extortion Economy (well, the trailer, at least). It’s a new miniseries about ransomware by MIT Tech Review in association with ProPublica, hosted by Meg Marco.
Chart of the week
“87 per cent of 24 dating apps reviewed by the Mozilla Foundation have severe issues when it comes to protecting their users’ privacy,” writes Florian Zandt for Statista.