Tearing apart the “evil” twins: A general conspiracy mentality is not the same as specific conspiracy beliefs

Bertlich, Tisa; Frenken, Marius

doi:10.31234/osf.io/hq7v9

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Instead, studies reveal a spectrum of conspiracy susceptibility present among ordinary, non-pathological individuals. 493 2. There is a striking resemblance between a substantial portion of our entertainment and conspiracy theories.…”

Section: What Is Typical For Misinformation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Humanities and Social Sciences Interculturally

2024

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Bibliography 187 8 Cf. https://archiv-nuv.npi.cz/t/rvp-pro-zakladni-vzdelavani.html. 9 Cf. https://www.statpedu.sk/sk/. 10 Cf. The System of Education in Poland, Foundation for the Development of the Education System, Warsaw 2014, https://education.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/the-system_2014_www.pdf. 11 In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, these are mainly named as Gymnasium, in Poland the term Liceum is used.For the purposes of this study, let's also leave aside the fact that in some cases it is possible to enter these types of schools already during the period of compulsory school attendance. 12 Cf.

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Section: What Is Typical For Misinformation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Humanities and Social Sciences Interculturally

2024

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“…Surveys have shown that the adoption of conspiracy belief is indeed more prevalent in (epistemically) disadvantaged communities. This can be due to being economically or ethnically marginalized (Crocker et al, 1999;Goertzel, 1994;Imhoff, 2015;Imhoff et al, 2022;Parsons et al, 1999;van Prooijen, Staman, et al, 2018), but can have other causes as well.…”

Section: Epistemic Progress and Epistemic Exclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insight in the conspiracist’s mind

Cruys¹,

Bervoets²,

Gadsby³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The motto of the conspiracist, “Do your own research,” may seem ludicrous to scientists. Indeed, it is often dismissed as a mere rhetorical device that conspiracists use to give themselves the semblance of science. In this perspective paper, we explore the information-seeking activities (“research”) that conspiracists do engage in. Drawing on the experimental psychology of aha experiences, we explain how these activities, as well as the epistemic experiences that precede (curiosity) or follow (insight or “aha” experiences) them, may play a crucial role in the appeal and development of conspiracy beliefs. Aha moments have properties that can be exploited by conspiracy theories, such as the potential for false but seemingly grounded conclusions. Finally, we hypothesize that the need for autonomous epistemic agency and discovery is universal but increases as people experience more uncertainty and/or feel epistemically excluded in society, hence linking it to existing literature on explaining conspiracy theories.

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“…This is perhaps understandable given the hard-to-reach target population (Franks et al, 2017), but the increasing adoption of web experiments in the field provides a viable alternative (Frenken & Imhoff, 2022a, 2022bGeorgiou et al, 2021c;Meuer & Imhoff, 2021). There is a large literature attempting to characterize the cognitive processing profile of conspiracists using questionnaires (Biddlestone et al, 2022;Bruder et al, 2013;Crocker et al, 1999;Frenken & Imhoff, 2021;Georgiou et al, 2019Georgiou et al, , 2021cHornsey et al, 2022;Imhoff, 2015;Imhoff & Bruder, 2014), yet the information-seeking and metacognition tasks recently developed in typical participants still await to be applied with conspiracists. For example, questionnaire-based research suggests overconfidence, in the form of the illusion of explanatory depth, is prevalent among conspiracists (Vitriol & Marsh, 2018).…”

Section: Metacognition and Information-seeking Tasks In The Labmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insight in the Conspiracist’s Mind

Van de Cruys,

Bervoets,

Gadsby

et al. 2023

Pers Soc Psychol Rev

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Academic Abstract The motto of the conspiracist, “Do your own research,” may seem ludicrous to scientists. Indeed, it is often dismissed as a mere rhetorical device that conspiracists use to give themselves the semblance of science. In this perspective paper, we explore the information-seeking activities (“research”) that conspiracists do engage in. Drawing on the experimental psychology of aha experiences, we explain how these activities, as well as the epistemic experiences that precede (curiosity) or follow (insight or “aha” experiences) them, may play a crucial role in the appeal and development of conspiracy beliefs. Aha moments have properties that can be exploited by conspiracy theories, such as the potential for false but seemingly grounded conclusions. Finally, we hypothesize that the need for autonomous epistemic agency and discovery is universal but increases as people experience more uncertainty and/or feel epistemically excluded in society, hence linking it to existing literature on explaining conspiracy theories. Public Abstract Recent events have made it painfully clear that conspiracy beliefs can tear deep rifts in society and that we still have not found an adequate, de-escalating response to this. To understand the appeal of conspiracy theories and find new, humanizing ways to talk about them, we propose in this perspective paper to start from the universal human need to autonomously make discoveries through personal knowledge-generating actions. Indeed, psychological research shows that the aha experiences that accompany subjective discoveries create confidence in and perceived ownership of ideas that may be exploited by conspiracy theories. We hypothesize that people experiencing more uncertainty and/or epistemic exclusion in society will especially feel the need to re-establish autonomous epistemic agency and discovery. While this explanation starts from shared human experiences and practices, it also illustrates the potential of those processes to lead to a narrowed world and ossified cognition.

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Tearing apart the “evil” twins: A general conspiracy mentality is not the same as specific conspiracy beliefs

Cited by 4 publications

References 2 publications

Teaching Humanities and Social Sciences Interculturally

Teaching Humanities and Social Sciences Interculturally

Insight in the conspiracist’s mind

Insight in the Conspiracist’s Mind

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