Correlation Neglect on Social Media
Effects on Civil Service Applications in China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9702894 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yihong Huang (0000-0002-2061-5649, Peking University), Yixi Jiang (Coursera), Ziqi Lu (Jinan University) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 135 |
| Issue | 672 |
| Pages | 2509-2530 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ej/ueaf047 |
| OpenAlex | W4411257352 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 17 |
Social media, on which signals are often correlated, has become a primary source of information. How do people form beliefs when reading correlated signals online? In a field experiment on Weibo, we exposed Chinese college students to redundant negative posts about civil service jobs. Consequently, students developed a 0.16-standard-deviation higher negative view of these jobs and were 11% less likely to register for civil service exams, compared to the control group. We find the same effect in a supplemental online survey experiment, and the effect is moderated by attention. Our study demonstrates that correlation neglect can affect beliefs and real-life outcomes, including career choices
China · Civil service · Correlation · Neglect · Political science · Public service · Social media · Computational and Text Analysis Methods · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Mathematics · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection · Psychology · Public Administration
The Allocation of Talent
Training, Wages, and Sample Selection
Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error
Overconfidence in Political Behavior
Social Media, News Consumption, and Polarization
An Experiment on Social Mislearning
Do Celebrity Endorsements Matter? A Twitter Experiment Promoting Vaccination in Indonesia
Persuasion Bias, Social Influence, and Unidimensional Opinions
The Price of Probity
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |