Agreed! And this is one of the difficulties in studying this topic & a common criticism. Everyone has a threshold for what they deem to be plausible, which is really what we often measure in conspiracy research. People conspire - the best we can do is look at likelihood based on available evidence.
Sure! That particular conspiracy theory is just an example. The measures of conspiracy belief included the BCTI, which includes that item among others. I also used another conspiracy measure that does not use specific conspiracy theories, rather it measures how often people believe others conspire.
How outrage drives the spread of online misinformation.
New work from @killianmcloughlin.bsky.social with Bluesky luminaries @klonick.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, @williambrady.bsky.social and colleagues.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl2829
My paper "When and How to Deviate from a Preregistration" is now in press at Collabra Psychology. I sincerely hope it will help people to 1) transparently report deviations from their preregistration, and 2) carefully evaluate the consequences of each deviation.
osf.io/preprints/ps... #metascience
Behavioral science policy recommendations early in the pandemic were *largely correct*. Our global collaboration of 80+ experts covers 747 studies (average sample size over 16,000!) & supports 16 of 19 claims. Many lessons for science & policy.
Out today in Nature:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Welcome! If you hit the search button and scroll down to the “in your network” section you should see some more familiar names! It improves as you are connected with more people as well.
🚨 Now out in Perspectives on Psychological Science 🚨
People engage with divisive and negative content online. But, does this mean that people *like* divisive content? No! We find that people across the political spectrum do not want divisive content to spread.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Figure 3: Consistent cross-cultural evidence that truth discernment is associated with analytic thinking, accuracy motivations and ideology
Cross-country misinformation accuracy and sharing
Misinformation accuracy
Figure 6: Ratings from even small groups of laypeople can reliably distinguish true from false headlines
Who falls for misinformation around the globe?
Individuals with high analytic cognitive style, accuracy motivations, and valuing of democracy are better at discerning misinformation from true claims. Really fascinating paper that looks at 16 countries across 6 continents.
