Dr. Yudian Cai (currently a lecturer at East China University of Science and Technology) and I are collaborating on a project that combines methods from Nature Human Behaviour (Kozyreva et al., 2024; https://interventionstoolbox.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/toolbox_map.html) with advanced metacognitive techniques (Fischer et al., 2019) to study psychological misinformation. Our research aims to explore how psychological misinformation forms, spreads, and persists in the public domain, focusing on the role of metacognitive factors in these processes.
We’re seeking one student worker to join us to investigate these topics. If you meet some of the following requirements and are passionate about the intersection of psychological inoculation and metacognitive approaches, we’d love to hear from you.
Requirements including:
Proficiency in Chinese: Ability to read, write, and comprehend complex texts in Chinese, as our research involves detailed analysis and documentation in this language.
Proficiency in collecting data from a large sample, e.g., using Duke Qualtrics.
Background in Psychology or Cognitive Science: A strong understanding of psychological theories, particularly in metacognition and psychological misinformation.
Interest in Psychological Inoculation: A keen interest in exploring and applying psychological inoculation techniques to address and mitigate misinformation.
Expected duration: at least 1 year or when the project is concluded.
Expected involvement: 5-10 hours per week but we expect we will work on the research over school breaks too.
Expected outcome and benefits for you: Normally a co-authorship on a peer-reviewed publication can be expected. Some of our DKU students have been co-authors with us, e.g., Mingfeng Cao (class 2022) on a JNeurosci paper; Chenyu Wang (class 2023) on biorvix (under review); and Yiyang Liu (class 2024; to be submitted). If you can contribute to the project to that extent, a fantastic recommendation letter must ensue (in this case, one from me, and one from Dr Cai –> two). In some instances, you might have also opportunities to present the work at conferences.
To apply: Please send an email to Yudian (email: gideoncai@163.com) to apply. He will perform the screening and make the final selection together with me.
References:
Kozyreva, A., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Herzog, S. M., Ecker, U. K., Lewandowsky, S., Hertwig, R., … & Wineburg, S. (2024). Toolbox of individual-level interventions against online misinformation. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-9.
Helen Fischer, Dorothee Amelung & Nadia Said (2019) The accuracy of German citizens’ confidence in their climate change knowledge Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages776–780 (2019)
