Social Psychology in the Information Age: Think Before You Share

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Think Before You Share

As part of my commitment to promoting media literacy, this video is worth sharing. As others have undoubtedly mentioned elsewhere (and as I have tried to highlight), if a news item appears on your social media feeds that seems too sensational to be true, it probably is. Do some basic fact checking before you contribute to making a misleading or fake story go viral. The fabric of our entire set of democratic institutions in the US and abroad are dependent upon us sharing accurate information rather than spreading falsehoods.

Please note that this video appears to be most compatible with Google Chrome (at least on the computers accessible to me).

Think before you share! pic.twitter.com/WRvLa0iLAt
— Ahmed Mohamed (@IStandWithAhmed) November 24, 2016

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About

Hi! I am A. James Benjamin, Jr., PhD. Most folks call me James or JB eventually.

I am an educator trained as a social psychologist. I work as an Associate Professor at University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. I earned my PhD from University of Missouri-Columbia in 2000. Much of my research has touched on cognitive and behavioral effects of aggression-related cues (e.g., video games and weapon images), increasingly from a critical and skeptical perspective. I have also examined person variables such as authoritarianism and short-term media exposure in relation to attitudes toward violence and toward torture. My more recent interests involve the psychometric properties of various measures of aggressive cognition that are commonly used by aggression researchers. My work intersects with that of related researchers in areas such as Media Communication.

As an educator, I primarily teach methodology courses and the undergraduate survey course in social psychology. I also regularly teach the introductory psychology course. I make a point of introducing students at all levels to the replication crisis. Increasingly, I am trying interactive activities to engage students to become more critical readers of the research literature in my field.

I use this blog to express my own professional and personal perspectives. This blog is completely independent of any organizations with which I am affiliated. Assume that the views I express here are exclusively mine and do not reflect the views of any employer.