Valentin Mang

Three schematic diagrams. The first illustrates selective publishing of internal resection, the second selective causal focus, and the third selective access and funding for researchers.

1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv.

There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.

The deadline for the meeting on counterfactuals is coming up. Don't forget to send in your contribution.

Is There a Better Way to Fight Misinformation? What if the best way to counter misinformation isn’t arguing facts, but offering better truths instead?

“Bypassing” is a promising strategy for countering misinformation by sharing truthful, positively framed statements instead of direct corrections. New research shows it can correct misperceptions effectively, especially when people are still open to learning.
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/misg...

The State Department closes the office that flags disinformation from Russia, China and Iran The State Department has shut down the office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading.

Killing both academic research and government watchdogs protecting us from foreign manipulation campaigns

apnews.com/article/rubi...

I got an email yesterday afternoon that my NSF SPRF Postdoctoral Fellowship was terminated. My grant focused on testing interventions to address online misinformation and I was 8 months into a two year appointment.

This statement from the NSF is insane.

Science is, in essence, designed to separate the true from the false.

Understanding how falsehoods spread is key to the scientific endeavor. It is not a violation of free speech to be proven wrong.

Congratulations! Sounds like a highly interesting paper!

Special Issue on "The Psychology of Pushback" We are currently accepting submissions for a special issue on "The Psychology of Pushback: Understanding Resistance and Compliance During Democratic Decline."

Call for papers: “The Psychology of Pushback: Understanding Resistance and Compliance During Democratic Decline.”
Edited by Jonas R. Kunst and John F. Dovidio.
advances.in/psychology/1...

<em>British Journal of Social Psychology</em> | Wiley Online Library Conspiracy theories against outgroups (e.g., the Great Replacement Conspiracy [GRC]) are believed to fuel radicalisation. Two experimental studies with British and American samples (Ntotal = 1690) ex...

💡Implications for scientific practice:
Registered Reports like this allow others to learn from null results and can help improve the publication landscape in psychology.

Read the full paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

💡Methodological implications:
The choice of experimental design, measurement of behavioural intentions, target population, and broader societal context matter! Check out the paper for our discussion of these aspects and our recommendations for researchers investigating similar phenomena.

💡Theoretical implications:
The distinction between upward conspiracy theories, which blame powerful actors (e.g., left-wing political elites), and downward conspiracy theories, which blame powerless actors (e.g., minorities), does not seem to be important for these radicalisation processes.

What are our main take-aways?

💡Real-world implications:
Exposure to the "Great Replacement" conspiracy can radicalise people by increasing not only their conspiracy beliefs, but also their hostile behavioural intentions against both Muslims and left-wing political elites.

In short:

Exposure to any "Great Replacement" narrative increased radical action intentions against Muslims and against left-wing political elites across the political spectrum.

The strongest and most consistent predictor of radical collective action intentions was right-wing political ideology.

🚨New paper alert🚨

How do different "Great Replacement" conspiracy narratives (blaming relatively powerful left-wing elites or relatively powerless Muslim communities) affect radical collective action intentions against different targets across the political spectrum?

A 🧵 about what we found:

I’ve created a starter pack of scholars who study conspiracy theories academically. If I’ve missed anyone off of the list, let me know (indeed, tag yourself)
go.bsky.app/PZPcxeL

Thanks!

Would love to be added - thanks!

It would be great if you could add me - thanks!

Would love to be added if possible - thanks!

Since we’re talking about trust in science right now (shout out to the TISP project!), here’s the updated „Trust in Science Scholars“ starter pack once more! Please share and reach out if you identify as a trust in science researcher and want to be added! #trustinscience #scicomm

The spread of misinformation and disinformation top the WEF short-term global risk report for 2025. www.weforum.org/publications...

Great to see this paper being accepted! @hakancakmak.bsky.social and @feitenglong.bsky.social made working on this project a pleasure!

If you are interested in how different Great Replacement conspiracy narratives shape hostility against Muslims and political elites, DM one of us for the preprint.

If you're interested in research on misinformation and conspiracy beliefs, I can highly recommend checking out this special issue!

Congratulations!

Thank you!

Thanks! :)

A special thanks to the anonymous reviewers and the editor, @kunstjonas.bsky.social, who were immensely helpful during the rigorous review process!

- Drawing on foundational theories of persuasion, we identify potential causes of these inconsistencies.

- We provide recommendations for how misinformation researchers can investigate source credibility effects in a more fruitful, systematic, and theory-driven way.

- We find substantial inconsistencies in source credibility effects across 91 misinformation studies.

- We coded various conceptual and methodological aspects of all identified effects (dataset openly available).

New paper alert!

In this new publication in advances.in/psychology, I systematically reviewed the literature on source credibility effects in misinformation research together with my supervisors Bob Fennis
and @kaiepstude.bsky.social.

A short summary of the highlights of the paper: