Publications

• Mirny, Daniel J., and Stephen A. Spiller (2025), "Source Memory Is More Accurate for Opinions Than for Facts," Journal of Consumer Research, 52(4), 779-799. Publisher Web Appendix Data & Materials In the press: The Conversation
  Abstract

  Effective communication relies on consumers remembering, sharing, and applying relevant information. Source memory, the ability to link a claim to its original source, is an essential aspect of accurate recall, attitude formation, and decision making. We propose that claim objectivity, whether a claim is a fact or an opinion, affects memory for the claim's source. This proposal follows a two-step process: (i) opinions provide more information about sources than facts do; (ii) claims that provide more information about sources during information encoding are more likely to be accurately attributed to original sources during recall. Across thirteen pre-registered experiments (N=7,510) and a variety of consumer domains, we investigate the effect of claim objectivity on source memory. We find that source memory is more accurate for opinions than for facts, with no consistent effect on claim recognition memory. We find support for the proposed process by manipulating facts to be more informative about sources and opinions to be less informative about sources. When forming inferences and seeking advice from sources, participants rely more on previously-shared opinions than on previously-shared facts. Our results indicate that opinions are more likely to be accurately attributed to original sources than are facts.

Working Papers

• Mirny, Daniel J., and Stephen A. Spiller, "Creeping Objectivity: Prior Exposure Leads People to Believe Claims Are More Objective." Under review at Cognition. Preprint Data & Materials
  Abstract

  Previous research has found that prior exposure increases the perceived veracity of objective claims (the illusory truth effect) as well as agreement with subjective claims (the mere exposure effect). The present research bridges these two literatures to ask whether prior exposure affects perceived claim objectivity itself. Whether people believe issues are matters of objective right and wrong or matters of subjective differences of opinion has downstream consequences for interpersonal conflict, collaboration, and the processing of misinformation. Yet people routinely disagree about this very judgment: one person will believe that a claim is objective (and can be fact-checked as either true or false) and another person will believe that the same claim is subjective (and not fact-checkable at all). In two pre-registered experiments (N=1,997 online participants), we find that repeated exposure to sociopolitical claims increases their perceived objectivity across three different measures (experiment 1), and that exposing participants to overarching topics associated with claims, in lieu of the claims themselves, produces a similar shift (experiment 2). This latter finding is consistent with a semantic coherence account, in which exposure activates a network of one's own associated beliefs against which the claim is evaluated. Because people are inclined to experience their own beliefs as objectively grounded, this evaluation may lean on assessments of accuracy, thereby shifting perceptions of the claim's objectivity. Together, these findings suggest that prior exposure can shift not only what people believe about the accuracy of objective claims or agreement with opinions, but whether they perceive the claim as objective or subjective in the first place.

• Mirny, Daniel J., and Joseph Reiff, "Motivating Media Literacy in Wartime Ukraine." Data & Materials
  Abstract

  Media literacy interventions can reduce susceptibility to misinformation, but their societal impact relies on voluntary adoption and engagement. Drawing on compensatory control theory, we tested whether framing a free online media literacy course as a means to restore control over one's information environment could increase consumer engagement in wartime Ukraine, a context in which personal control is under chronic ecological threat. In a preregistered field experiment with an international NGO, 5,052 Ukrainian schoolteachers were randomly assigned to share a digital promotional flier with parents, featuring one of three messages: compensatory control-based, fact-based, or status quo. The compensatory control-based message did not influence initial clicks to visit the course website. It did produce slightly higher enrollment than status quo and fact-based messages, but absolute rates were low across conditions. A Meta advertising A/B test (N = 321,385) and two online experiments (Ns = 1,898 and 3,197), all with Ukrainian participants, found no advantage of the compensatory control-based framing on any measure of engagement. We probe plausible explanations for these differences. Together, this commentary contributes to emerging research on misinformation, adds to an ongoing conversation about the boundary conditions of compensatory control effects, and raises questions about leveraging consumer behavior theory in wartime environments.

• Mirny, Daniel J., and Jimin Nam, "People Infer Traits from Others' Screen Time but Not Their Own."
  Abstract

  Smartphones are ubiquitous, and most users now have easy access to automated weekly reports of their daily screen time, making a once-invisible behavior newly quantified and visible. Screen time has become a frequent topic of public debate, prompting public health advisories and legislative attention. Yet virtually all of this discourse has focused on whether screen time affects the user. We ask a different question: does information about a person's screen time affect how others perceive them? Across four pre-registered experiments (total N = 4,402), we find that people draw differentiated trait inferences from a target's screen time, rating those with higher screen time as less happy, less confident, and less productive, among other traits, but also as more informed about world events and more politically active. At the same time, participants showed markedly weaker associations between their own screen time and self-evaluations, revealing an asymmetry between how people evaluate others and themselves. The effect was attenuated but not eliminated when additional information about the target was available, and was broadly consistent across target ages and evaluator generations. Screen time appears to function not only as a personal behavior but as a social cue from which people readily infer the traits of others.

Selected Work in Progress

• Mirny, Daniel J., "Objectivity Spillover: Context Effects on Perceived Fact-Checkability." A claim's perceived objectivity assimilates toward the claims it is presented alongside: facts among opinions seem less fact-checkable, and opinions among facts more so.
• Mirny, Daniel J., and Ariel Fridman, "Choice-Set Re-formation and Attribute Carryover." How do previously encountered options shape the new shortlist consumers form alongside novel options?
• Maimone, Giulia, Daniel J. Mirny, and Stephen A. Spiller, "Belief Formation Versus Belief Updating." Does comprehending a claim entail accepting it, so that beliefs persist even after they are corrected?
• Mirny, Daniel J., and Albert Valentí, "Prospective Versus Retrospective Framing in Advertising." Imagining future experiences (prospective framing) increases advertising clickthrough rate relative to recalling past experiences (retrospective framing).
• Mirny, Daniel J., Vardit Landsman, and Elena Reutskaja, "The Lonely Polarizer: How Social Isolation Drives Political Extremism in Spain." Does chronic social isolation push people toward more extreme political attitudes?
• Maimone, Giulia, and Daniel J. Mirny, "Eroding Moral Objectivity." Can reducing the perceived objectivity of moral claims soften moral conviction?
• Mirny, Daniel J., Jon Bogard, and Eugene M. Caruso, "Ethical Binaries: Framing Morality as Binary Rather Than as Continuous Affects Ethical Judgments and Behavior." Framing morality as binary rather than continuous shifts behavior: a "shades of gray" framing increases cheating, while a "black and white" framing increases punishment of marginal transgressions.