Austria invests c€4 million in cognitive study of polarisation and misinformation
8 Dec 2024
Austria’s leading funding body for research is investing nearly €4 million in a multi-disciplinary project aimed at tackling global problems around political polarisation and human psychology.
Led by Central European University (CEU), it will explore why apparently coherent belief systems sometimes tolerate incoherent and contradictory opinions.
Funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, at a cost of € 3.8 million over four years with an option to extend for a further four years, the project is being carried out by an interdisciplinary network of researchers from CEU’s cognitive science and economics departments together with Susann Fiedler of Vienna university of economics and business.
“Beliefs shape how individuals perceive the world, make decisions, and interact with others. Yet, they often harbour contradictions, sometimes persisting even in the face of contradictory evidence,” said the CEU’s Adam Szeidl.
The research brings together expertise from psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, and economics, integrating formal models with emotional, cognitive, and social dimensions, to build a comprehensive framework for understanding belief dynamics. The team will investigate how deeply rooted core beliefs, tied to identity, interact with inferred beliefs shaped by experience and reason.
“Understanding why people hold contradictory beliefs and why some beliefs persist in face of contradictory evidence is crucial for addressing challenges like misinformation, political polarisation, and the erosion of social trust,” said CEU associate professor, project coordinator Agnes Melinda Kovacs.
The CEU is a privately funded university set up by the billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros to address the challenge of maintaining open societies and democratic processes.
Pic: Shutterstock (Davide Angelini)
