Nudges to Mitigate Confirmation Bias during Web Search on Debated Topics: Support vs. Manipulation

When people use web search engines to find information on debated topics, the search results they encounter can influence opinion formation and practical decision-making with potentially far-reaching consequences for the individual and society. However, current web search engines lack support for information-seeking strategies that enable responsible opinion formation, e.g., by mitigating confirmation bias and motivating engagement with diverse viewpoints. We conducted two preregistered user studies to test the benefits and risks of an intervention aimed at confirmation bias mitigation. In the first study, we tested the effect of warning labels, warning of the risk of confirmation bias, combined with obfuscations, hiding selected search results per default. We observed that obfuscations with warning labels effectively reduce engagement with search results. These initial findings did not allow conclusions about the extent to which the reduced engagement was caused by the warning label (reflective nudging element) versus the obfuscation (automatic nudging element). If obfuscation was the primary cause, this would raise concerns about harming user autonomy. We thus conducted a follow-up study to test the effect of warning labels and obfuscations separately.

According to our findings, obfuscations run the risk of manipulating behavior instead of guiding it, while warning labels without obfuscations (purely reflective) do not exhaust processing capacities but encourage users to actively choose to decrease engagement with attitude-confirming search results. Therefore, given the risks and unclear benefits of obfuscations and potentially other automatic nudging elements to guide engagement with information, we call for prioritizing interventions that aim to enhance human cognitive skills and agency instead.