Research

The focus of my research is on public attitudes towards fairness, information and the role of Social Media in politics. For that purpose, I run large online and laboratory experiments in which participants make decisions that have real consequences.

Published in peer-reviewed journals:

Baum, Katharina; Meißner, Stefan; Abramova, Olga; and Krasnova, Hanna, (2019). "DO THEY REALLY CARE ABOUT TARGETED POLITICAL ADS? INVESTIGATION OF USER PRIVACY CONCERNS AND PREFERENCES". In Proceedings of the 27th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Stockholm & Uppsala, Sweden, June 8-14, 2019. ISBN 978-1-7336325-0-8 Research Papers.

Baum K, Meissner S, Krasnova H (2021) Partisan self-interest is an important driver for people’s support for the regulation of targeted political advertising. PLoS ONE 16(5): e0250506. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250506:
Abstract: The rapid emergence of online targeted political advertising has raised concerns over data privacy and what the government’s response should be. This paper tested and confirmed the hypothesis that public attitudes toward stricter regulation of online targeted political advertising are partially motivated by partisan self-interest. We conducted an experiment using an online survey of 1549 Americans who identify as either Democrats or Republicans. Our findings show that Democrats and Republicans believe that online targeted political advertising benefits the opposing party. This belief is based on their conviction that their political opponents are more likely to be mobilized by online targeted political advertising than are supporters of their own party. We exogenously manipulated partisan self-interest considerations of a random subset of participants by truthfully informing them that, in the past, online targeted political advertising has benefited Republicans. Our findings show that Republicans informed about this had less favorable attitudes toward regulation than did their uninformed co-partisans. This suggests that Republicans’ attitudes regarding stricter regulation are based not solely on concerns about privacy violations, but also, in part, are caused by beliefs about partisan advantage. The results imply that people are willing to accept violations of their privacy if their preferred party benefits from the use of online targeted political advertising.

In Preparation:

There is something you should know - the moral obligation to provide information

Abstract: Information provision can lead to gains for some but losses for other recipients. Because recipients might differ in their priors, or their abilities to update beliefs, information provision could negatively affect some recipients' decisions while helping others. This can create or contribute to inequality between recipients. This paper studies whether people are willing to provide information even when that leads to an unequal outcome, which they dislike. To do so, two large incentivized experiments are run in which Americans decide if they want to provide information. The findings of both experiments give robust causal evidence that people have the attitude that information provision is a moral obligation and that they accept an outcome which they dislike when it is the consequence of information provision. The results further show that people who highly value others' autonomy are more likely to implement an unequal outcome they dislike if it is the consequence of information provision. This suggests that respect for autonomy is an important source of the moral obligation to provide information.

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Cancel the deal? An experimental study on the exploitation of irrational consumers - Joint work with Alexander W. Cappelen and Bertil Tungodden

Abstract: Consumers can sometimes be exploited because they make mistakes in their valuation of products. We present the results from a large-scale experimental study that examines whether third-party spectators from the general population in the US want to cancel a deal where a buyer has made a mistake in the valuation of a product and agreed to pay more for the product than the seller knows it is worth. We find that the majority of the spectators cancel such deals and that a substantial share of spectators also choose to fine the seller. A large minority, however, are willing to uphold the deal. The role of the seller in proposing the deal and obfuscating the information, significantly affects share of spectators who cancels the deal and who fine the seller. Our results shed new light on when people view market transactions as acceptable and their attitudes to government regulation of businesses.

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