Procrastination is a tendency to delay tasks, despite knowing that it might lead to negative consequences. Previous studies have shown that students who frequently procrastinate, present difficulties with maintaining attention during task completion. These problems might be related to decreased resistance to distraction caused by task-irrelevant stimuli appearing in the surrounding environment. In the present study we verified this hypothesis investigating the relationship between procrastination and susceptibility to distraction with the use of behavioral and neurophysiological measures. We recruited high (HP) and low (LP) procrastinating students and asked them to perform an Auditory Visual Distraction task which required participants to respond to visual stimuli and ignore the preceding sounds. Although HP (vs. LP) did not show increased orientation of attention towards distracting sounds, they were still less attentive to task-relevant stimuli. These results indicate that procrastination-related attentional deficits might be linked to other sources of distraction, such as mind-wandering episodes.
In this article, a modest attempt is undertaken to connect the rational choice theory mechanism with the sociological theory of voting, as efforts to juxtapose both theories are still rare, although some cited accomplishments offer interesting insights. Our dependent variable is participation in a local election in Poland. The local government elections in Poland seem to offer a setting particularly well-suited for a test of the rational choice hypothesis and its relation to sociological explanations of voting behavior. The essential contribution of the article derives from our conviction that social embeddedness and rooting into the social milieu and local community matter for both the cost of participating in a local election and the cost of deciding whether to participate. In the world of post-cleavage politics, individualization of political behavior and involvement in (new) social networks play an increasingly important role. The general finding can be summarized as follows: the social embeddedness of citizens does enhance the probability of participation in an election; however, it does not substitute for the impact of rational motivation factors, nor does it significantly decrease the latter’s net impact on our dependent variable.
When there were only traditional media such as press, radio or television, communication was structured and predictable. The emergence of social media has not only changed us as users, but has provided completely new opportunities for communication. At the same time, unfortunately, there were threats resulting from the lack of content control, its rapid growth and the impact on the creation and distribution process, which increased the amount of disinformation. These factors have created fertile ground for trolls carrying out disinformation attacks in the form of entertainment publications or hate speech publications. Their role is to ridicule or insult, and their goal is to destabilize the discussion, mislead their interlocutors, and thus damage the good name of a person or group. The article describes the phenomenon of trolling and its relationship with disinformation, focusing on the features, behaviors and effects of such activities.
We use disinformation in all cases and associate it mainly with the media and politics. However, fake news, manipulations and half-truths penetrate various parts of our reality and cause great damage to it. Excessive simplifications contribute to social exclusion, speculation with financial information leads to stock market declines, organized troll groups influence election results, manipulated advertisements rob us of money, and predatory magazines lead to a crisis of science. The more we think that it does not concern us, the easier we fall into the trap of disinformation. That is why it is so important to understand what disinformation really is and what it is not, where it occurs and how to recognize it, what effects it causes and what to do to counteract it.
The book consists of 3 parts. The first one systematizes the most important concepts and phenomena related to disinformation, such as fake news, deep and cheapfake, clickbait and hate. The author then discusses various areas and contexts of social life in which disinformation occurs and has an impact: from stereotypes and exclusions, through health, politics, business, media, and science. In this part we can see what happens when we do not care about the quality of information and how easy it is to be manipulated. The third part of the book is devoted to the issue of social responsibility, which in the face of disinformation becomes our challenge but also an opportunity to build a better information ecosystem based on truth.
Pozostałe osiągnięcia naukoweMonografia (zamknięty dostęp)Monograph
