Exposure to elite misinformation is associated with the use of toxic language and moral outrage.

Shown is the relationship between users’ misinformation-exposure scores and (a) the toxicity of the language used in their tweets, measured using the Google Jigsaw Perspective API27, and (b) the extent to which their tweets involved expressions of moral outrage, measured using the algorithm from ref. 28. Extreme values are winsorized by 95% quantile for visualization purposes. Small dots in the background show individual observations; large dots show the average value across bins of size 0.1, with size of dots proportional to the number of observations in each bin. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Atari, M., Reimer, N. K., Graham, J., Hoover, J., Kennedy, B., Davani, A. M., Karimi-Malekabadi, F., Birjandi, S., & Dehghani, M. (2021). Pathogens Are Linked to Human Moral Systems Across Time and Space. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/tnyh9

The simplification required to make models and study systems can be a useful tool, but one constantly needs to go back to the actual system to make sure that future predictions and work actually fit the real world system.

Too often social theorists make assumptions which aren't supported in real life and this can be a painfully dangerous practice, especially when those assumptions are built upon in ways that put those theories out on a proverbial creaking limb.

This idea is related to the bias that Charles Mathewes points out about how we treat writers as still living or as if they never lived. see: https://hypothes.is/a/VTU2lFvZEeyiJ2tN76i4sA

Henderson, R. K., & Schnall, S. (2021). Social Threat Indirectly Increases Moral Condemnation via Thwarting Fundamental Social Needs [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/rjzys

Bedder, R., Vaghi, M., Dolan, R., & Rutledge, R. (2020). Risk taking for potential losses but not gains increases with time of day. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/3qdnx

Bish, A., Yardley, L., Nicoll, A., & Michie, S. (2011). Factors associated with uptake of vaccination against pandemic influenza: A systematic review. Vaccine, 29(38), 6472–6484. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.06.107

Neville, F. G., Templeton, A., Smith, J., & Louis, W. R. (2021). Social norms, social identities and the COVID-19 pandemic: Theory and recommendations. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/m9afs

Mulukom, V. van, Pummerer, L., Alper, S., Bai, (Max) Hui, Cavojova, V., Farias, J. E. M., Kay, C. S., Lazarevic, L., Lobato, E. J. C., Marinthe, G., Banai, I. P., Šrol, J., & Zezelj, I. (2020). Antecedents and consequences of COVID-19 conspiracy theories: A rapid review of the evidence. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/u8yah

Rostami-Tabar, B., Ali, M. M., Hong, T., Hyndman, R. J., Porter, M. D., & Syntetos, A. (2020). Forecasting for Social Good. ArXiv:2009.11669 [Cs]. http://arxiv.org/abs/2009.11669

Whitney R. Robinson on Twitter: “1/ An #EpiTwitter 🧵 about theory... https://t.co/rSjfkHG21r” / Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. Retrieved August 18, 2020, from https://twitter.com/WhitneyEpi/status/1295522551892971520

COVID-19 Social Science Tracker - Google Sheets

Fatfouta, R., & Oganian, Y. (2020). Bargaining under social distancing requirements: Effects of face masks on socio-economic decision-making in the COVID-19 pandemic [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/cn7by

Allington, D., Duffy, B., Wessely, S., Dhavan, N., & Rubin, J. (undefined/ed). Health-protective behaviour, social media usage and conspiracy belief during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Psychological Medicine, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1017/S003329172000224X

Young, V. A. (2020, May 20). Nearly Half Of The Twitter Accounts Discussing ‘Reopening America’ May Be Bots. Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science. https://www.scs.cmu.edu/news/nearly-half-twitter-accounts-discussing-%E2%80%98reopening-america%E2%80%99-may-be-bots

Edelmann, A., Wolff, T., Montagne, D., & Bail, C. A. (2020). Computational Social Science and Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 46(1), annurev-soc-121919-054621. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054621

Leary, A., Dvorak, R., De Leon, A., Peterson, R., & Troop-Gordon, W. (2020). COVID-19 Social Distancing [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mszw2

Pummerer, L., & Sassenberg, K. (2020, April 14). Conspiracy Theories in Times of Crisis and their Societal Effects: Case “Corona”. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/y5grn