American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology

TECH WATCH PROJECT (TWP): Expansion of Tech Watch Project to monitor content being sent by online technology companies to a large group of registered voters in all 50 US states: A team of nearly 50 paid and volunteer staff members successfully recruited more than 13,000 field agents - a politically-balanced group of registered voters - to allow AIBRT researchers to monitor ephemeral content being sent to voters by Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, and other tech companies. In all, more than 65 million ephemeral experiences - content that can shift opinions and votes and that is normally lost forever - were preserved and analyzed. Significant political bias was found in this content sufficient to shift millions of votes without people's awareness. A detailed report was presented at a scientific conference in 2023, and a 480-page report was published in the Congressional Record in connections with Dr. Epstein's testimony before Congress on Dec. 13, 2023. Such a system will make Big Tech companies accountable to the public and has the potential to stop possible interference in our elections and possible indoctrination of our children.

ONLINE PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS (TESTS): Data collection from 19 online psychological tests (plus multiple foreign translations) provided free of charge to the public in areas such as parenting, stress-management, adult competence, sexual orientation, resilience, relationship skills, and other areas. Some are available in Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, French and other languages. People can take the tests anonymously, and because they answer various demographic and criterion questions before taking the test itself, we can analyze test performances both demographically and according to how well test scores predict various self-reported outcomes such as happiness, personal success, and professional success. Data collection, statistical analysis, conference submissions and presentation, scientific journal submissions, and new translations are in progress for existing tests. New tests are also being developed, such as a "digital hygiene" test. In 2023, one publication based on data from our online tests was published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Psychology. Data from three other tests were presented at scientific conferences, and other papers were submitted for publication.

ONLINE MANIPULATION STUDIES (OMS): AIBRT researches continued and expanded research they have been conducting since 2013 when they discovered the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME), one of the most powerful types of influence ever discovered in the the behavioral sciences. Experiments and analyses of SEME and SEME-related phenomena were continued, along with research on other new forms of influence the internet has made possible: the Search Suggestion Effect (SSE), the Answer Bot Effect (ABE), the YouTube Manipulation Effect (YME), the Targeted Messaging Effect (TME), the Digital Personalization Effect (DPE), the Differential Demographics Effect (DDE), the Multiple Exposure Effect (MEE), and others. One paper on this topic were published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE in 2023, and other papers were submitted for publication. AIBRT researchers continued to present this research at scientific meetings and to submit related papers for possible presentation at scientific meetings in 2024.