Investigating the influence of search result rankings on user attitudes
Tim Draws · OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2020
In this research, we aim to investigate the effect of search results rankings on user attitudes towards debated topics. For example, it is commonly debated whether zoos should exist. If a user without a strong pre-existing opinion on zoos conducts a web search in which documents opposing zoos are ranked higher than documents supporting zoos, that user might tend towards adopting an opposing viewpoint as well – and vice versa. Previous work has demonstrated that users’ decision-making can be affected by search result rankings. We will conduct a between-subjects user study to study this effect in more detail and with respect to debated topics. We expose study participants to different search result rankings (i.e., containing varying degrees of viewpoint diversity) related to different debated topics and measure their attitudes towards these topics. In line with related research on this topic, we test participants who do not have a strong pre-existing attitude with respect to the search results they see. This is to sketch a realistic scenario in which a user conducts a web search in order to build an informed opinion about a topic. However, in contrast to this earlier work, we only show participants a top 10 list of search results (e.g., as opposed to a top 30) to incorporate the notion that few users go beyond the first page of search results when searching the web. Next to the effect of search result rankings on attitude change, we are also interested in which users are particularly affected in this respect, which other factors affect attitude change in the context of web search, and whether users are aware of the different levels of viewpoint diversity in the search results we show them.