Call it a conspiracy: How conspiracy belief predicts recognition of conspiracy theories.

Autor: Prims JP; Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 Apr 18; Vol. 19 (4), pp. e0301601. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Apr 18 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301601
Abstrakt: While conspiracy theories are treated as irrational fringe beliefs in popular culture, conspiracy belief is quite common. Given the disconnect between stereotypes about conspiracy belief and its prevalence, I tested whether people have difficulty recognizing the conspiracy theories that they believe as conspiracy theories. Across two studies I demonstrate that people have considerable difficulty identifying conspiracy theories they believe as conspiracy theories, particularly when they do not take much time to consider whether their beliefs might be conspiracy theories. This is consistent with the notion that people experience "conspiracy blindness." People have trouble recognizing the conspiracy theories they believe as conspiracy theories because they do not take the time to consider whether their beliefs might be conspiracy theories. In Study 2, I demonstrate that people can overcome their conspiracy blindness and recognize the conspiracy theories they believe as conspiracy theories when they are given a definition for "conspiracy theory" and asked to consider their answer. This suggests that people are typically ignorant of their own conspiracy beliefs, but capable of recognizing them when given the tools and motivation to do so. However, recognizing their beliefs as conspiracy theories does not reduce their adherence to those beliefs.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 J. P. Prims. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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