Study finds political views, not race, shape reactions to mass shooting data

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Study finds political views, not race, shape reactions to mass ********* data

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One of the three conditions used in our experiment consisting of a bar chart of the counts of victims in mass shootings in the ******* States from 2013 to 2023, highlighting the counts of Hispanic victims. The other two conditions consist of the same bar chart but highlight the counts of White and ****** victims, respectively. Credit: arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2408.03269

A new study from NYU Tandon School of Engineering suggests that when it comes to visualizations of mass ********* data, political ideology plays a more significant role in shaping emotional responses than ******* identity.

The research,

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to the arXiv preprint server, challenges assumptions about how people interpret data related to **** *********.

The study involved 450 participants who were shown visualizations —in this case, bar charts—of mass ********* victim data highlighting different ******* groups. Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, participants did not show stronger emotional responses when viewing data about victims of their own race.

“We anticipated seeing evidence of ******* homophily, the tendency for people to identify more strongly with members of their own group,” said Poorna Talkad Sukumar, a postdoctoral associate in NYU Tandon’s Technology Management and Innovation Department and the lead author on the research which will be presented at

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next month. “But our findings suggest that the gravity of mass shootings as a topic may override such in-group preferences.”

Instead, the study found that political views were the strongest predictor of how participants reacted emotionally to the visualizations. Those with more ******** political leanings tended to have more negative emotional responses across all conditions.

Oded Nov, the NYU Tandon Morton L. Topfer Professor of Technology Management and a member of NYU Tandon’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), is another author of the paper. He said the findings highlight the complex interplay between personal beliefs and data interpretation. “This research underscores how pre-existing ideological frameworks can shape our emotional reactions to information, even when presented in a seemingly neutral, visual format.”

Maurizio Porfiri, Director of CUSP and an Institute Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is also an author of the paper. He suggested that “studies like this are critical to helping us identify best practices to present data on firearm ********* and sensitize the general public about firearm-related harms.”

The study also revealed that even relatively simple bar charts elicited strong negative emotions from participants, regardless of their race or the ******* group highlighted in the data. This finding could have implications for how sensitive topics are visually presented in media and public policy discussions.

The researchers note that their study had limitations, including a relatively small sample size, which limits the detection of subtle effects. They call for further research exploring different types of societal issues and visualization designs to better understand how viewer characteristics interact with data presentation.

As debates around **** ********* and ******* disparities continue to occupy national attention, this study offers valuable insights into how Americans process related information. It suggests that bridging ideological divides may be more crucial than addressing ******* differences when it comes to fostering a shared understanding of mass ********* data.

This study contributes to Porfiri, Nov, and colleagues’ ongoing data-based research related to U.S. **** prevalence and *********.

More information:
Poorna Talkad Sukumar et al, Connections Beyond Data: Exploring Homophily With Visualizations, arXiv (2024).

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Journal information:
arXiv

Provided by
NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Citation:
Study finds political views, not race, shape reactions to mass ********* data (2024, September 18)
retrieved 18 September 2024
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#Study #finds #political #views #race #shape #reactions #mass #********* #data

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