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The dark side of meaning-making: How social exclusion leads to superstitious thinking
Abstract
This paper tests a meaning-making model of conspiratorial thinking by considering how one's search for meaning mediates between social exclusion and the endorsement of conspiratorial (Study 1) and superstitious (Study 2) beliefs. In Study 1, participants first wrote about a self-selected personal event that involved a social interaction, they then indicated how socially excluded they felt after the event, and, finally, they rated their endorsement of three well-known conspiracy theories. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to a Social Inclusion, a Social Exclusion, or a Control condition, after which they indicated the association between improbable events in three scenarios. In addition, both studiesmechanistically tested the relation between social exclusion and conspiratorial/superstitious thinking by measuring the participants' tendency to search for meaning. Both Study 1 (correlational) and Study 2 (experimental) offer support for the hypothesis that social exclusion is associated with superstitious/conspiratorial beliefs. One's search for meaning, correlational analyses revealed, mediated this relation.We discuss the implication of the findings for community-wide belief dynamics and we propose that social inclusion could be used to diminish the dissemination of superstitious beliefs and conspiracy theories.
... Despite its theoretical plausibility and some empirical correlations between conspiracy theory belief and elements of meaning, there is no convincing evidence to date that conspiracy theory belief actually increases the experience of meaning in life. Several recent studies have shown a link between a need or search for meaning and conspiracy theory belief [23,34,35]. However, turning towards conspiracy theory belief when searching for meaning does not seem to elicit the desired sense of meaningfulness [35,36]. ...
... Several recent studies have shown a link between a need or search for meaning and conspiracy theory belief [23,34,35]. However, turning towards conspiracy theory belief when searching for meaning does not seem to elicit the desired sense of meaningfulness [35,36]. We found only one publication [23] that reported a positive, albeit very small, relationship between generic conspiracist beliefs and presence of meaning (N = 289; r = 0.14). ...
... Ostracisma sense of being excluded, ignored, or rejectedpredicted COVID-19 conspiracy theory belief in a UK-based representative sample [34]. There is evidence for associations between social exclusion and other conspiratorial beliefs too, with a search for meaning acting as a mediator in a US-American sample from Amazon Mechanical Turk and a student sample, both sample sizes around N = 100 [35]. Trust in political institutions, on the other hand, has repeatedly been identified as a negative predictor of conspiracy theory belief [7][8][9]. ...
Background
Conspiracy theory belief – explaining the ultimate causes of social and political events with claims of secret conspiracies – is assumed to arise from a desire to make sense of uncertainty, especially in times of crisis. However, there is no compelling evidence that conspiracy theory belief actually fulfils this function, particularly in terms of evaluating one's life as meaningful. We posit that the adoption of conspiracy theory belief can be explained as a fluid compensation when a more proximal source of meaning, a sense of belonging to society, is threatened. Thus, a positive association between conspiracy theory belief and meaningfulness should emerge when people feel alienated from society. We therefore tested the hypotheses that alienation from society correlates negatively with meaningfulness (H1), and that it moderates the relationship between conspiracy theory belief and meaningfulness (H2).
Method
Conspiracy theory belief related to the COVID-19 pandemic, meaningfulness (Meaning and Purpose Scales, MAPS), and perceived alienation from society were assessed in a representative sample of N = 974 German residents.
Results
As expected, alienation from society was inversely related to meaningfulness and moderated the relationship between conspiracy theory belief and meaningfulness. According to the interaction, a positive association between belief in conspiracy theory and meaningfulness emerged when individuals experienced themselves as alienated from society.
Conclusion
The results suggest that conspiracy theory belief might alleviate a lack of meaningfulness caused by experienced alienation from society. Individuals who felt discriminated against, treated unequally, or having their rights restricted were more likely to hold conspiracy theory belief, which was associated with a greater sense of meaning in their lives.
... For instance, Whitson and Galinsky (2008) demonstrated that when participants' need for structure is experimentally heightened, they are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. Furthermore, Graeupner and Coman (2017) identified an association between belief in conspiracy theories and the search for meaning in one's life. ...
... For instance, individuals who recall experiences of ostracism are more inclined to embrace conspiracy theories (Graeupner & Coman, 2017). ...
... The MS measures the desire to seek meaning and purpose in life. Graeupner and Coman (2017) reported a positive association between MS and conspiracy beliefs. The MS consists of five items and responses are scored on a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (absolutely untrue) to 7 (absolutely true). ...
The COVID‐19 pandemic has sparked an interest in conspiracy theories worldwide. Previous research has shown that reflective thinking can inhibit belief in conspiracy theories. However, this study delves further by investigating whether reflective thinking moderates the effects of other personal factors, such as anxiety and social class. We conducted an online survey and analyzed data from 937 crowd workers in Japan. The results show that the inhibitory effect of reflective thinking, measured through performance‐based and self‐report methods, remained robust among the participants. However, our analysis yielded near‐null results for the interaction, rejecting the idea that reflective thinking acts as a significant moderator in the relationship between reflective thinking and various personal factors. The implications of these findings suggest that reflective thinking does not amplify factors that strengthen belief in conspiracy theories. Instead, fostering reflective thinking appears to be an effective strategy for reducing conspiracy beliefs.
... 17 Graeupner et al. findings revealed that young adults have firmer superstitious beliefs than older adults. 18 Moreover, researchers concluded that young adults show superstitious beliefs, which may not persist with the period of ageing; their life span experiences play a vital role in making such kinds of beliefs. Following social exclusion, people endorse more superstitious beliefs, a relationship fully media-ted by the search for meaning. ...
... Following social exclusion, people endorse more superstitious beliefs, a relationship fully media-ted by the search for meaning. 13,18 ...
Objective: To determine the relationship between superstitious beliefs and self-efficacy among participants and explore selfefficacy, age, education, gender and socioeconomic status as the significant predictors of superstitious beliefs among participants. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Garrison University, Lahore Pakistan, from May to Nov 2020. Methodology: Total number of 200 study participants, age ranged of 18 to 50 years, were selected. The questionnaires; (1) a measure to superstitions scale and (2) general self-efficacy scale, were used to analyze the relationship between superstitious beliefs and self-efficacy with the role of ageing, education and socioeconomic status among participants. Result: Out of 200 male and female participants, study results reveal that superstitions belief and self-efficacy were correlated positively in a very small to moderate direction. Moreover, the study result showed that age (β=0.10), gender (β=0.05), socioeconomic status (β=0.91), and self-efficacy (β=0.24) were positively predicting superstitious beliefs while education (β=- 0.09) was negatively predicting the superstitious beliefs among participants. Conclusion: The results of the study showed the positive correlation between superstitious beliefs and self-efficacy among participants. Furthermore, the study concluded that participants' age, gender, socioeconomic status and self-efficacy were positive predictors of superstitious belief.
... Conspiracist worldviews were particularly appealing to participants who were relatively lonely as adolescents and experienced increasing loneliness through their lives. One possible explanation for this pattern, albeit tentative and requiring further research, is that the contrasting of one's own increasing loneliness relative to peers might be potent in fostering feelings of social isolation [44][45][46] , motivating our participants to turn to conspiracy theorizing to protect their ego, or to seek social connection among like-minded conspiracist groups 1,17,20,28 . ...
... Showing that the estimated levels of loneliness in adolescence are associated with conspiracy mentality, almost three decades later and accounting for later developments of loneliness, suggests that loneliness is related to conspiracy mentality over substantially long timeframes. Combined with the significant association of the slope of loneliness to conspiracy mentality in midlife, this finding may suggest that loneliness and conspiracy mentality are systematically related to each other from adolescence to midlife in ways consistent with the theoretical notion that conspiracist worldviews reflect sense making and ego defenses adopted in response to loneliness 20,21,23 . The unavailability of earlier measurements of conspiracy worldviews is a major limitation, nevertheless. ...
In the age of misinformation, conspiracy theories can have far-reaching consequences for individuals and society. Social and emotional experiences throughout the life course, such as loneliness, may be associated with a tendency to hold conspiracist worldviews. Here, we present results from a population-based sample of Norwegians followed for almost three decades, from adolescence into midlife (N = 2215). We examine participants’ life trajectories of loneliness using latent growth curve modeling. We show that people reporting high levels of loneliness in adolescence, and those who experience increasing loneliness over the life course, are more likely to endorse conspiracy worldviews in midlife.
... Conspiracy theory belief might have positive results for the individuals, helping them satisfy their needs: (1) epistemic -to avoid uncertainty, satisfy curiosity and assign meaning (Van Prooijen & Douglas, 2017), and that is the reason why people with tendencies for conspiracy thinking seek patterns even where there are none (Van Prooijen & Douglas, 2018); (2) existential -to rebuild a sense of control, safety and power (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999;Grzesiak-Feldman, 2013); and (3) social -to sustain self-image and the image of one's group. Conspiracy thinking links to feeling special (Lantian et al., 2017), is connected to feeling a need to belong (Graeupner & Coman, 2017) or a sense that one's group is not valued enough (Cichocka et al., 2016) or even faces a threat (Jolley et al., 2018). Similarly, people endorsing Binding values tend to tolerate ambiguity less (Federico et al., 2016), given their preference for status quo and tradition (Boehm, 2012). ...
... Las creencias en teorías de la conspiración podrían facilitar resultados positivos a las personas, ayudándoles a satisfacer sus necesidades: (1) epistémicas, para evitar la incertidumbre, satisfacer la curiosidad y asignar significado (Van Prooijen & Douglas, 2017) y por eso las personas con tendencias a un pensamiento conspiranoico buscan patrones incluso donde no los hay (Van Prooijen & Douglas, 2018); (2) existencial, para reconstruir un sentimiento de control, seguridad y poder (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999;Grzesiak-Feldman, 2013); y (3) social, para mantener la autoimagen y la imagen del endogrupo. El pensamiento conspiranoico está vinculado a un sentimiento de ser especial (Lantian et al., 2017), vinculado a su vez con la necesidad de pertenencia (Graeupner & Coman, 2017) o la sensación de que no se valora lo suficiente el endogrupo (Cichocka et al., 2016) o incluso de tener que afrontar una amenaza (Jolley et al., 2018). Del mismo modo, las personas que defienden valores aglutinantes tienden a tolerar peor la ambigüedad (Federico et al., 2016), dada su preferencia por el statu quo y la tradición (Boehm, 2012). ...
Building on the Moral Foundations Theory and findings regarding the linkage of values, convictions, and beliefs, the aim of the study was to compare people displaying various constellations of moral foundations regarding their tolerance of ambiguity, fear of COVID-19 (FCV), endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and the extent to which they believed in the effectiveness of five COVID-19 preventive measures. This study was self-report and questionnaire-based (N = 212), performed on the general public (age from 18 to 65). Moral foundations clustered into four groups: Individualizing, Binding, Anti-Individualizing, and Generally Moral. The endorsement of Individualizing values (Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity) was linked to higher FCV and higher rating of the effectiveness of COVID-19 preventive measures. Endorsing Binding values (Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity) was related to lower tolerance of ambiguity and displaying higher conspiracy beliefs. Findings are discussed in the light of their meaning of values for socially responsible behavior during a pandemic.
... 24 In addition, a 2016 survey in northern Germany found that 68% of women and just 38% of males believe in superstitions. 25 The results showed that patients with secondary scientific education and below had the highest levels of superstitious beliefs. People with adequate education are less prone to believe in accidental magical abilities. ...
... These ideas affect how people respond to treatments, health, and psychological needs. 25 ...
Background
For disease management, numerous drugs are prescribed. However, long-term treatment adherence is still unsatisfactory. Culture influences beliefs regarding medication, particularly irrational ideas that affect treatment adherence. The Middle East, notably Jordan, is affected by a lack of awareness of these attitudes with regard to treatment adherence.
Objective
Investigating the adherence level among patients with chronic diseases in southern Jordan. To determine whether certain demographic traits, different disease factors, and superstitions have any impact on treatment adherence.
Patients and Methods
A cross-sectional study that assessed treatment adherence and superstitious thinking-related health issues were conducted among chronic disease patients who had reviewed intrinsic medicine clinics at the Karak governmental hospital.
Results
For 314 participants, treatment adherence was categorized into three levels low-adherent patients made up 27.7% highly-adherent patients made up 49.4%, and the remaining adhered at a medium level. Treatment non-adherence was more common in the elderly and female, according to the chi-square analysis. Additionally, the classification of superstitious beliefs into three categories revealed that different percentages of the study population held low superstitious beliefs 21%, medium superstitions 54.1% and high superstitions 24.8% beliefs. The chi-square analysis revealed that the elderly, female, and low-educated patient groups were the highest in superstitious thinking. Multiple regression analysis revealed that educational level and superstitious thinking explained 0.223 of the treatment adherence variances. Treatment adherence is positively influenced by educational level β (0.244) value, but superstitious thinking is negatively influenced by β (−0.302) value.
Conclusion
In conclusion, about half of the participants highly adhered. The results of the multiple-regression analysis indicate that superstition and education were two variables that impacted treatment adherence in this study. While superstitious beliefs lead to lower treatment adherence, education has the opposite effect. Finally, it is recommended to promote patient education to reduce superstitious beliefs, improve medication adherence.
... 4 Disadvantaged or lower-income communities: Conspiracy theories, a type of misinformation, may appeal more to certain communitiessuch as ostracised groups or those of lower socioeconomic status who may receive less government subsidies or access to healthcare, and thus are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories in an effort to make sense of their (perceived-to-be disadvantageous) experience. 46 In addition, conspiracy belief has also been linked to prejudice against powerful groups 47who may be the sources of true information. ...
Medical misinformation (false health or medical‐related information) has seen a rapid increase in volume recently, with the global surge in social media usage and further exacerbation by the COVID‐19 pandemic. This may put more lives at stake, as misinformation is an often‐cited reason that people make dangerous health choices, engage in harmful practices and reject beneficial health treatments. In this article, we explore the drivers and consequences, as well as suggest several strategies at the personal, educational and systemic level, for physicians to guide and communicate with patients who subscribe to medical misinformation.
... Moreover, socially excluded people preferred genuine over deceptive smiles, a preference that was accounted for by threatened belonging and self-esteem needs 56 . Relatedly, correlational and experimental findings showed that ostracism or social exclusion increased conspiracy and superstitious beliefs because it threatened the sense of control and meaning of individuals and increased their perceived psychological vulnerability 12,40,57 . ...
... Alternatively, threats to meaning in life may trigger a search for, but not necessarily a loss in, meaning (Graeupner & Coman, 2017). Similarly, the pursuit of self-esteem may not be exclusively due to feelings of low self-worth, but rather, may be determined by multiple factors (e.g., narcissism; Horvath & Morf, 2009). ...
Although conspiracy belief may arise from a frustration of psychological needs, research has yet to investigate these relationships over time. Using four annual waves of longitudinal panel data in New Zealand (2019-2022; N = 55,269), we examined the relationship between four psychological needs (namely belonging, control, meaning in life, and self-esteem) and conspiracy belief. Results from four random-intercept cross-lagged panel models reveal stable between-person effects indicating that those whose core needs are less satisfied tend to exhibit higher levels of conspiracy belief across time. Within-person analyses further identify small cross-lagged effects within individuals: decreases in levels of control and belonging, as well as increases in levels of meaning in life, temporally precede increases in conspiracy belief. Within-person fluctuations in conspiracy belief also have negative cross-lagged associations with control (but not with the three other needs). These data provide novel insights into the psychological factors that foster conspiracy belief.
... In an Indian study, 60% of the participants thought that illnesses were the result of luck or superstition [34]. In Northern Germany, superstitions were also reported in nearly 40% of men and 70% of women [35]. 70% of people in Africa use folk remedies like charms and witchcraft to treat their illnesses [36]. ...
People must have particular personality traits and social resources, also known as health literacy, in order to access, comprehend, and use information to make decisions about their health. Patients’ ability to engage in complex disease management and self-care is strongly related to their level of health literacy. It can help us stay healthy by preventing illness and effectively managing existing illnesses. People with low health literacy (LHL) may find it difficult to manage their condition and prevent illness, which may lead to increased use of healthcare services. Furthermore, LHL is associated with increased hospitalizations, increased use of emergency care, decreased use of preventative services, and a worsened ability to understand labels and health messages, a worsened state of health, higher mortality, and more expensive medical care.
... De hecho, se ha comprobado experimentalmente que, cuando las personas sienten amenazado el sentido de su vida, se vuelven más propensas a creer en historias milagrosas y sobrenaturales (Routledge et al., 2017). Damaris Graeupner y Alin Coman fueron más allá y comprobaron que, además, las personas que se sienten aisladas y socialmente rechazadas serán más proclives a creer en supersticiones y conspiraciones (Graeupner & Coman, 2017). El mecanismo compensatorio es sencillo. ...
El objetivo de Las nuevas supersticiones. Marcos del discurso anticientífico y recomendaciones para una divulgación preventiva, es exponer los elementos más característicos de los discursos anticientíficos o pseudocientíficos que circulan en las redes sociales y en la calle: en nuestro mundo, que ahora es digital y global. Es importante conocer en qué consisten y cómo operan para estar prevenidas como ciudadanas y como profesionales de la información y la comunicación, como docentes y periodistas. La publicación incluye un estudio en profundidad acompañado de una breve guía didáctica y de buenas prácticas. En conjunto, apunta a las cuestiones más problemáticas del tratamiento mediático (pero también social) de estas teorías anticientíficas o pseudocientíficas.
... Weaker, correlational evidence points in the same direction; the extent to which participants reported feeling socially excluded in a recent social event was positively correlated with their endorsement of three specific conspiracy theories (Graeupner & Coman, 2017). In the same vein, experiences of ostracism (as measured by the scale by Gilman et al., 2013) showed positive correlation with various political conspiracy theories (Poon et al., 2020; Study 1) as well as with COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs among a UK-based sample stratified across age, sex, and ethnicity (N = 895; Gkinopoulos & Uysal, 2021). ...
It is one of the core tenets of ostracism research that being socially excluded
deprives basic human needs on several levels. It threatens individuals’ need to
belong, need to feel good about themselves, need to perceive having control,
and need for recognition (Williams, 2009). Conspiracy beliefs, in contrast, are
frequently theorized to be a response to deprived social needs, often the very
same ones: the need to have clear and definitive explanations (epistemic
needs), to exert agency and control (existential needs), and to feel good
about oneself and connected to others (social needs; Douglas et al., 2017).
Against this background, it seems unsurprising that various connections have
been made between social exclusion experiences on the one hand and the
endorsement of conspiracy theories on the other hand. Potentially less intuitive,
research has also explored the reverse direction: experiencing social
exclusion due to the public endorsement of conspiracy theories. In the following,
I will review this literature by starting with the direct intuitive examples
(ostracism leading to conspiracy beliefs), as well as indirect connections via the
respective deprived needs. I will end with the reverse directions as well as open
research questions. Before doing so, however, I will briefly summarize some
basic tenets of psychological research into the antecedents and consequences
of conspiracy beliefs and their relevance for radicalization processes.
... In a study conducted in India, 60% of the patients believed in luck and superstition with regard to illnesses [59]. Superstitions also reported in close to 40% men and 70% women in Northern Germany [60]. In Africa, 70% of people turn to indigenous treatments such as charms and witchery to treat their illness [61]. ...
To cure any disease, proper use of medicine or taking medicine in the correct order is required. Even patients from developed countries struggle to maintain their drug compliance. There is an odd parallel between underdeveloped, emerging nations and the so-called developed world in the West when it comes to improper medicine use. The understanding and perception of the disease is the most important factor influencing whether patients stick to their treatment plan.
... We also aimed to manipulate cooperative world belief via a social exclusion experiment to determine its causal effect on pro-environmental behavior intentions. Previous research has already showed that the experience of social exclusion can lead to changes in individuals' world views (e.g., Graeupner & Coman, 2017;Lin, 2023). As group membership can lead to higher levels of cooperation, while social exclusion can result in less pro-social behavior (Goette et al., 2006;Twenge et al, 2007), we hypothesized that feelings of social exclusion could temporarily reduce participants' belief in a cooperative world. ...
Generalized beliefs about the world—termed ‘primal world beliefs’ or ‘primals’—have been hypothesized to affect behavior, since they contain information which influences the perceived costs, benefits, and justifications for different behaviors. For example, people who see the world as highly improvable may view prosocial behaviors as having more benefits and therefore be more inclined to work harder on making things better. Three preregistered studies (N = 1,534 US participants) investigated the relationship between primals and several measures of people’s propensity toward sustainable behavior. Beliefs that the world is less hierarchical, but more improvable, cooperative, harmless, meaningful, and abundant were weakly to moderately associated with self-reported ethically-minded consumer behavior, pro- environmental behavior, and behavioral intentions. These relationships were largely robust to controlling for Big Five traits and political ideology, although some of the relationships were subsumed by the more general belief that the world is good. Changes in two world beliefs (cooperative, harmless) over a three-week period weakly predicted pro-environmental behavior intentions when controlling for people’s previously reported pro-environmental behavior. These correlational findings suggest some possible avenues for future research: if these beliefs are found to be causally prior to environmental attitudes, they may offer a promising target for interventions aimed at increasing sustainable behavior.
... 4,8 Feelings of ostracism, which can result from social isolation, can also lead to conspiracy belief, the underlying motivator being the need to understand the experience. 9 Conspiracy belief is weakly correlated with the lack of prevention measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. 10 Bierwiaczoneket al., 10 conducted a meta-analysis in which it was found that conspiracy beliefs were associated with reluctance to adhere to social distancing mandates and lowered vaccination rates, however these beliefs were unrelated to mask wearing behaviors or hygiene responses such as hand washing. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath that have swept across the world from 2020 through the present has provided an abundance of often conflicting ideas about how to protect the self and others, including issues related to misinformation and conspiracy theories. This study sought to investigate how belief in conspiracy theories interacted with the personality traits of agency, communion, unmitigated agency (UA), and unmitigated communion (UC) to predict the extent to which participants felt that COVID-19 presented a real threat to society and the extent to which mitigation efforts such as masking and social distancing could help stop the spread of the disease. Participants (n = 105) were recruited via social media posts and represented a diverse sample in terms of age, ethnicity, and gender. Results generally indicate that conspiracy beliefs are associated with not believing that COVID-19 poses a threat to well-being and that mitigation efforts are not efficacious, however higher levels of agency and communion are protective against these beliefs whereas higher levels of UA exacerbate them. UC was not significant in these analyses. Implication will be discussed.
... Social belonging is one of the basic psychological needs (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Ryan & Deci, 2017), and lonely individuals are often motivated to seek social connection from social media and online communities (O'Day & Heimberg, 2021;Sirola et al., 2019). Individuals who have marginalized or deviant interests, such as antisocial ideas and conspiracy beliefs, are prone to experience loneliness and social exclusion in offline relationships (Graeupner & Coman, 2017;Zwar et al., 2022). Perceived loneliness is a risk factor for various problematic online behaviors (O'Day & Heimberg, 2021;Savolainen et al., 2020), also dark web use . ...
The dark web is known for illicit and unregulated content, making it crucial to gain a better understanding of dark web users. This article reports two studies analyzing the role of psychosocial well-being, problematic online behaviors, personality traits, and institutional trust in dark web use. Study 1 utilized cross-sectional data from 18 to 75-year-old respondents from six European countries. Dark web use was examined in relation to psychological distress, social belonging, excessive social media use, online identity bubbles, and institutional trust. In Study 2, the associations were scrutinized using longitudinal survey data from Finnish respondents aged 18 to 75, expanding the focus to problem gambling and personality traits. Logistic regression models were used for the analyses. In Study 1, excessive social media use, involvement in online bubbles, poor social relationships, and male gender were associated with dark web use across European countries. Country differences were found regarding institutional trust, psychological distress, and sociodemographic factors. The results of Study 2 supported the findings regarding excessive online use and showed that gambling problems and certain personality traits predicted dark web use. The dark web attracts excessive online users and those burdened with psychosocial issues, as well as individuals with certain personality traits.
... To this end, such segregation behaviors may give rise to or are driven by gender and homosexuality conspiracy beliefs. Also, previous literature confirms this claim by evidencing a positive association between social exclusion and conspiratorial thinking (Graeupner & Coman, 2017). Therefore, our findings can also be discussed under the lens of the zero sum thinking debate by showing how gender and homosexuality conspiracy beliefs about LGBTQI+ people can, in essence, serve as the outcome of a zero sum thinking of religious people about LGBTQI+ groups and the subsequent implications for the intergroup relations that are formed following such intergroup beliefs. ...
Introduction
Homosexuality constitutes a topic of ongoing debates not only in lay, but also political and religious discourse. At the same time, conspiracy theories gain more and more popularity and narratives about the hidden gay agenda result in discriminatory behaviors against LGBTQI+ people. This study aims to test (a) the relationship between religiosity and social distance from LGBTQI+ people, and (b) the serial mediating effect of gender conspiracy beliefs and LGBTQI+ conspiracy beliefs in the aforementioned relationship.
Methods
N = 703 participants were recruited online in the UK in August 2020. Ethical approval was secured and participants provided their written consent. We measured religious attitudes, gender and homosexuality conspiracy beliefs, and social distance from LGBTQI+ people.
Results
People higher in religiosity were more distant from LGBTQI+ people, a relationship that was serially mediated by gender and LGBTQI+ conspiracy beliefs.
Conclusion and Policy Implications
Results open up the discussion for policy-making implications reflected, for example, on the need to introduce critical thinking and skills to debunk conspiracy theories even more in workplaces, schools, universities, and institutions, which are supposed to foster diversity among their members.
... 1,2 Kroeber defined culture as Superstition is defined as an irrational belief observed in almost all traditions and is linked to one or more factors like supernatural powers, good luck, bad omen, fiction, folk tales, or practice without any rational basis. 19 People tend to become more superstitious when they cannot control the course of events or outcomes. 20,21 It can be very destructive when it enters the domain of health-related beliefs and practices. ...
Background
Culture is an essential component that governs all aspects of human behavior. Superstition is an irrational belief observed in almost all cultures. It is linked to one or more factors like supernatural powers, good luck, bad omen, fiction, illegitimate activity, absurd narration, folk tales, or practice without any rational basis.
Methods
A cross-sectional social experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of cultural appropriation as a tool to enhance medical knowledge acquisition and attitudinal development in medical education. The experiment was designed to target a non-medical population. Four superstition-oriented videos were developed with 20 scientific pieces of information related to forensic medicine. A data collection sheet was developed on Microsoft form with 16 questions was distributed on the participants.
Results
Out of the 986 participants, 763 (77.5%) watched the whole set of videos. About 55–95% of responders demonstrated knowledge acquisition of all the questions. There was a statistically significant difference between those who watched the videos and those who did not. When participants were asked about the most important information they remember from the videos, their answers fell into two main categories; information related to core scientific knowledge (80% of participants) and information not related to the core knowledge (16% of respondents). The top three areas for the reasons why people wanted to watch the videos were curiosity, knowledge, and career. A change in attitudes was reported among the participants where 80% of responders demonstrated curiosity to know more about this world, 46% responders reported developing more respect for the forensic physician and 43% revealed their ignorance about this great hidden world.
Conclusion
Cultural appropriation could be a needed strategy to accommodate for upscale in education. Learners might validate that learning happens through a door that adopts not only honours their culture and adapts to it.
... ethnic or religious minorities), and low social status also predispose to conspiracy beliefs (e.g. Graeupner and Coman 2017;Uscinski and Parent 2014). Conspiracy beliefs may be higher in low-status groups due to attempts to explain their position and status (Douglas et al. 2019). ...
There is no easy explanation for why some people believe in conspiracy theories. Susceptibility to conspiracy theories can be associated with a range of various factors in which both psychological and situational components play a significant role. In this article, I aim to provide a review of potential psychological and situational factors that fuel conspiracy theorising, focusing primarily on examples relating to politics. Moreover, I aim to analyse the effects of conspiracy theories on society and politics. At the beginning, I will define the key terms used in psychology research. Then, I will discuss psychological factors. I will review current research on predispositions that drive people to believe conspiracy theories. These may comprise psychological motives (epistemic, existential, and social), cognitive factors (e.g. intuitive thinking style), personality traits (e.g. maladaptive traits), or worldviews (e.g. authoritarian worldviews). In the next section, I aim to illuminate situational factors. Large-scale and threatening events may drive people to seek explanations in the wrong places, specifically, in conspiracies. A notable example is the COVID-19 pandemic when the popularity of conspiracy theories greatly increased. Overall, a combination of specific predispositions and situations may significantly contribute to higher levels of conspiracy beliefs, which, consequently, severely impact society.
... Во-первых, когда не удовлетворяются те или иные индивидуальные психологические потребности [Douglas, 2021]. В таком случае обращение к теориям заговора позволяет повысить чувство безопасности и контроля [Kruglanski et al., 2021], избежать неопределенности [van Prooijen et al., 2018] и удовлетворить потребность в принадлежности к группе [Graeupner, Coman, 2017]. Во-вторых, теории заговора в большей степени распространены в тех обществах, где наблюдается низкий уровень доверия политическим и социальным институтам [Barkun, 2015;Uscinski et al., 2020;Uscinski et al., 2016]. ...
Целью исследования является анализ стабильности взаимосвязей между ковид-скептическими установками, социально-демографическими и личностными характеристиками в России. Для этого используются материалы двух волн панельного онлайн-опроса «Ценности в кризисе» (первая волна — июнь 2020 г., N = 1527; вторая волна — апрель — май 2021 г., N = 1199, повторно опрошенных — 978). Сравнительный анализ данных двух волн подтверждает устойчивость основных черт ковид-скептицизма. В частности, показано, что ковид-скептики в среднем моложе, Имеют более низкий уровень образования, менее привержены базовым ценностями сохранения и более — ценностям открытости. Им чаще свойственны ксенофобия, низкие уровни тревожности и институционального доверия. Есть и отличия от лета 2020 г.: ковид-скептицизм стал чаще проявляться среди людей с меньшим уровнем дохода, а также исчез «отрезвляющий» опыт столкновения с болезнью. Дополнительные вопросы, которых не было в первой волне, показывают, что скептиков характеризуют хорошее здоровье и повышенная склонность к конспирологическому мышлению. Благодарность. Статья подготовлена в рамках гранта, предоставленного Министерством науки и высшего образования Российской Федерации (№ соглашения о предоставлении гранта: 075-15-2022-325).
... So far, operational izations of conspiracy beliefs have not always adequately reflected what is commonly understood by the term. For example, items tapping into paranormal beliefs (Graeupner & Coman, 2017), corruption (van Prooijen & Acker, 2015) or paranoid ideation (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008) have served as proxies for measuring conspiracy beliefs. In other instances, researchers have developed ad-hoc scales for measuring specific conspiracy beliefs, merely relying on the face validity of those scales (e.g., Douglas & Sutton, 2008), with proper validation studies reported only in rare occasions (e.g., Shapiro et al., 2016). ...
The growing scientific interest in conspiracy beliefs calls for validated measures of conspiracy mentality, the tendency to believe any conspiracy theory. In this study, we validate a French and Italian version of the Conspiracy Mentality Scale (CMS). French (N = 160) and Italian (N = 114) speaking residents of Switzerland filled out a questionnaire, including measures of the need for social validation, compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures, perceived severity of the pandemic, and functional literacy. The two-dimensionality of the scale (conspiracy theory ideation and skepticism) was validated by confirmatory factor analysis. As predicted, conspiracy theory ideation was negatively related to functional literacy and compliance with pandemic control measures, and positively related to social validation. Measurement invariance indicated metric, scalar, residual and strucutral equivalence across the two samples. We conclude that the French and Italian versions of the CMS lend a valid assessment of people’s general tendency to believe conspiracy theories.
... Similarly, the role of existential motives is supported by research showing that people are more likely to turn to CTs when they experience general or existential anxiety (Biddlestone, Green, Cichocka, Douglas & Sutton, 2022;Liekefett, Christ & Becker, 2021;Scrima, Miceli, Caci & Cardaci, 2022) or powerlessness (see van Mulukom et al., 2022). Finally, the role of social motives in explaining CTs was supported by studies that showed greater adherence to CTs among people who experience ostracism (Graeupner & Coman, 2017;Poon, Chen & Wong, 2020), collectivist values (Adam-Troian et al., 2021), defensive in-group identity, or collective narcissism (Bertin, Marinthe, Biddlestone & Delouv ee, 2022;Golec de Zavala, Bierwiaczonek & Ciesielski, 2022) or who hold intergroup prejudice (Imhoff & Bruder, 2014;Nera, Wagner-Egger, Bertin, Douglas & Klein, 2021). ...
Research over the past decade has shown that endorsement of conspiracy theories (CTs) is shaped by motivated cognition processes. Accordingly, CTs are theorized to stem from compensatory processes, as individuals attempt to cope with existential threats (i.e., uncertainty, loss of control). Based on the meaning maintenance model, we investigated whether this compensatory effect could follow from epistemic threats in domains unrelated to CTs in the form of uncanniness. Feelings of uncanniness were experimentally manipulated through exposure to absurdist art and literature in a set of five studies, followed by a mini meta-analysis (Ntotal = 1,041). We conducted a final, preregistered sixth study (N = 266) manipulating uncanniness through autobiographical recall. No robust evidence for a compensatory effect was found. We discussed methodological and conceptual limitations of the meaning maintenance model, as well as boundary conditions under which conspiracy theories could have a compensatory function to deal with threats.
... Similarly, the role of existential motives is supported by research showing that people are more likely to turn to CTs when they experience general or existential anxiety Liekefett et al., 2021;Scrima et al., 2022) or powerlessness (see van Mulukom et al., 2022). Finally, the role of social motives in explaining CTs was supported by studies that showed greater adherence to CTs among people who experience ostracism (Graeupner & Coman, 2017;Poon et al., 2020), collectivist values (Adam-Troian et al., 2021) defensive ingroup identity or collective narcissism (Bertin et al., 2022;Golec de Zavala et al., 2022), or who hold intergroup prejudice (Imhoff & Bruder, 2014;Nera et al., 2021). ...
Research over the past decade has shown that endorsement of conspiracy theories (CTs) are shaped by motivated cognition processes. Accordingly, CTs are theorized to stem from compensatory processes, as individuals attempt to cope with existential threats (i.e., uncertainty, loss of control). Based on the Meaning Maintenance Model, we investigated whether this compensatory effect could follow from epistemic threats in domains unrelated to CTs in the form of uncanniness. Feelings of uncanniness were experimentally manipulated through exposure to absurdist art and literature in a set of 5 studies, followed by a mini meta-analysis (Ntotal = 1,041). We conducted a final, pre-registered sixth study (N = 266) manipulating uncanniness through autobiographical recall. Results suggest that a compensatory effect occurs only among participants from a general population (i.e., non-students) and not among students. We discussed methodological limitations, conceptual limitations of the Meaning Maintenance Model, as well as boundary conditions under which conspiracy theories could have a compensatory function to deal with threats.
... In a study conducted in India, 60% of the patients believed in luck and superstition with regard to illnesses [59]. Superstitions also reported in close to 40% men and 70% women in Northern Germany [60]. In Africa, 70% of people turn to indigenous treatments such as charms and witchery to treat their illness [61]. ...
To cure any disease, proper use of medicine or taking medicine in the correct order is required. Even patients from developed countries struggle to maintain their drug compliance. There is an odd parallel between underdeveloped, emerging nations and the so-called developed world in the West when it comes to improper medicine use. The understanding and perception of the disease is the most important factor influencing whether patients stick to their treatment plan.
... People highly prone to conspiratorial thinking also tend to belong to stigmatized minority groups that have good reason to be wary about depending on their broader community to treat them well ( Crocker et al., 1999 ;Davis and Reyna, 2015 ;Davis et al., 2018 ). Even people who are not normally prone to conspiratorial thinking gravitate to such beliefs when other individuals reject or ostracize them ( Graeupner and Coman, 2017 ;Poon et al., 2020 ). ...
Conspiracy theorists’ unpopular opinions likely make them more apprehensive about interactions with others, frustrating their need to belong. Therefore, they may be susceptible to believing misinformation because evidence that others share their beliefs provides “social proof” that they can expect interactions with others to be positive and rewarding. The present research examined whether alternatively fulfilling the need for social connection through romantic relationships could protect conspiracy theorists against COVID-19 misinformation. In a 3-week daily diary study (N = 555), experimental participants implicitly learned to associate their romantic partners with positive experiences (by repeatedly pairing their partner with highly positive and approachable stimuli, McNulty et al., 2017). We then assessed how much participants trusted individuals they might normally distrust, as a manipulation check, and how much participants tuned their daily personal beliefs and behavior to match the U.S. public's daily susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation. Participants high on conspiratorial thinking trusted fellow community members more in the experimental than control condition. Participants high on conspiratorial thinking in the experimental condition were also less likely to treat the U.S. public's greater daily susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation as proof that they could discount the virus. The present findings suggest that rewarding romantic connections might be leveraged to limit conspiracy theorists’ susceptibility to believing public skepticism about COVID-19.
... Loneliness has been suggested to enhance vigilance for social threat and therefore, it is possible that loneliness intensifies psychotic symptoms, specifically paranoid delusions (Bangee et al., 2014;Cacioppo et al., 2006). Others showed that social exclusion and isolation can lead to the occurrence of psychotic experiences, and paranoid delusions in particular (Graeupner and Coman, 2017;Selten and Cantor-Graae, 2005). This is supported by experimental research in non-clinical samples, suggesting that social exclusion drives paranoia (Freeman et al., 2002;. ...
Background:
The role of loneliness and social exclusion in the development of paranoia is largely unexplored. Negative affect may mediate potential associations between these factors. We investigated the temporal relationships of daily-life loneliness, felt social exclusion, negative affect, and paranoia across the psychosis continuum.
Method:
Seventy-five participants, including 29 individuals with a diagnosis of non-affective psychosis, 20 first-degree relatives, and 26 controls used an Experience Sampling Method (ESM) app to capture the fluctuations in loneliness, feelings of social exclusion, paranoia, and negative affect across a 1-week period. Data were analysed with multilevel regression analyses.
Results:
In all groups, loneliness and feelings of social exclusion were independent predictors of paranoia over time (b = 0.05, p < .001 and b = 0.04, p < .05, respectively). Negative affect predicted paranoia (b = 0.17, p < .001) and partially mediated the associations between loneliness, social exclusion, and paranoia. It also predicted loneliness (b = 0.15, p < .0001), but not social exclusion (b = 0.04, p = .21) over time. Paranoia predicted social exclusion over time, with more pronounced effects in controls (b = 0.43) than patients (b = 0.19; relatives: b = 0.17); but not loneliness (b = 0.08, p = .16).
Conclusion:
Paranoia and negative affect worsen in all groups following feelings of loneliness and social exclusion. This highlights the importance of a sense of belonging and being included for mental well-being. Loneliness, feeling socially excluded, and negative affect were independent predictors of paranoid thinking, suggesting they represent useful targets in its treatment.
... Superstitions also reported in close to 40% men and 70% women in Northern Germany [60]. In Africa, 70% of people turn to indigenous treatments such as charms and witchery to treat their illness [61]. ...
Proper use of medicine or taking medicine in correct order is essential to cure any disease. Even patients from developed nations have trouble staying on top of their drug compliance. When it comes to improper medicine use, there is an odd parallel between underdeveloped, emerging nations and the so-called developed world in the West. The key factor influencing whether patients stick to their treatment plan is their understanding and perception of the disease.
... In an Indian study, 60% of the participants thought that illnesses were the result of luck or superstition [34]. In Northern Germany, superstitions were also reported in nearly 40% of men and 70% of women [35]. 70% of people in Africa use folk remedies like charms and witchcraft to treat their illnesses [36]. ...
People must have particular personality traits and social resources, also known as health literacy, in order to access, comprehend, and use information to make decisions about their health. Patients' ability to engage in complex disease management and self-care is strongly related to their level of health literacy. It can help us stay healthy by preventing illness and effectively managing existing illnesses. People with low health literacy (LHL) may find it difficult to manage their condition and prevent illness, which may lead to increased use of healthcare services. Furthermore, LHL is associated with increased hospitalizations, increased use of emergency care, decreased use of preventative services, and a worsened ability to understand labels and health messages, a worsened state of health, higher mortality, and more expensive medical care.
... 60 In Africa, 70% of people turn to indigenous treatments such as charms and witchery to treat their illness. 61 Surprisingly, more than 40% of Americans be-lieve in spiritual treatments and researchers found that 73% of addiction treatment programs in the USA include a spirituality-based element. 62,63 Phobia was the cause of insulin refusal among 60% diabetic patients, despite physician recommendations -found in a study conducted in South Iran. ...
Introduction and aim. To cure any disease, proper use of medicine or taking medicine in the correct order is required. Even patients from developed countries struggle to maintain their drug compliance. There is an odd parallel between underdeveloped , emerging nations and the so-called developed world in the West when it comes to improper medicine use. The understanding and perception of the disease is the most important factor influencing whether patients stick to their treatment plan. Material and methods. Prioritized databases for public health topics included PubMed, ALTAVISTA, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Central Registers. Along with other online sources, journals from Elsevier, Springer, Willey Online Library, and Wolters Kluwer were thoroughly searched. Analysis of the literature. There is a thorough discussion of medication non-adherence issues and a few adherence-improving methods. Conclusion. Adherence to treatment guidelines is essential in the treatment of any disease.
... In a study conducted in India, 60% of the patients believed in luck and superstition with regard to illnesses [59]. Superstitions also reported in close to 40% men and 70% women in Northern Germany [60]. In Africa, 70% of people turn to indigenous treatments such as charms and witchery to treat their illness [61]. ...
The indices of patients' health outcomes have historically included recurrence of symptoms, number of emergency visits, hospitalization and re-admission rates, morbidity, and mortality. Even patients from developed nations have trouble staying on top of their drug compliance. When it comes to improper medicine use, there is an odd parallel between underdeveloped, emerging nations and the so-called developed world in the West. The key factor influencing whether patients stick to their treatment plan is their understanding and perception of the disease. Medication adherence was already a difficult and complex health behavior prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the disruptions it brought. The promptness of disease diagnosis and management, the cost of treatment, the availability of health insurance, and medication adherence are all factors that providers, who play a significant role in the healthcare system, can affect. Beyond the availability and accessibility of healthcare, the ability of patients to follow doctors' treatment advice greatly contributes to patient outcomes. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of medication non-adherence, which has led to worsened health conditions, higher healthcare costs, and higher healthcare spending. Care providers in clinic and pharmacy settings can set up routines to support adherence to medication and educate and encourage patients about services like distance-accessible technologies and online ordering of medications.
... In an Indian study, 60% of the participants thought that illnesses were the result of luck or superstition (Banerjee and Varma, 2013). In Northern Germany, superstitions were also reported in nearly 40% of men and 70% of women (Graeupner and Coman, 2017). 70% of people in Africa use folk remedies such as charms and witchcraft to treat their illnesses (Puckree et al., 2002). ...
... In an Indian study, 60% of the participants thought that illnesses were the result of luck or superstition (Banerjee, 2013). In Northern Germany, superstitions were also reported in nearly 40% of men and 70% of women (Graeupner D, 2017). 70% of people in Africa use folk remedies like charms and witchcraft to treat their illnesses (Puckree, 2022). ...
People must have particular personality traits and social resources, also known as health literacy, in order to access, comprehend, and use information to make decisions about their health. Patients' ability to engage in complex disease management and self-care is strongly related to their level of health literacy. It can help us stay healthy by preventing illness and effectively managing existing illnesses. People with low health literacy (LHL) may find it difficult to manage their condition and prevent illness, which may lead to increased use of healthcare services. Furthermore, LHL is associated with increased hospitalizations, increased use of emergency care, decreased use of preventative services, and a worsened ability to understand labels and health messages, a worsened state of health, higher mortality, and more expensive medical care.
... As a result, the CTs has been related with underlying psychopathological traits, as schizotypy, which make a person more likely to develop erroneous beliefs (e.g., Georgiou, et al., 2019;Hart & Graether, 2018). Also has been related to people with low educational level (Douglas et al., 2016;Sallam et al., 2021); female gender (Sallam et al., 2021); that have high levels of anxiety or worry (Grzesiak-Feldman, 2013); lower monthly income (Sallam et a., 2021); that use social media sources of information (Earnshaw et al., 2020;Wilson & Wiysonge, 2020); that feel they have no power (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999); that need to feel unique compared to others (Lantian et al., 2017); that feel the need to belong (Graeupner & Coman, 2017), or that feel that their group is underestimated (Cichocka et al., 2016), or threatened (Jolley et al., 2018). However, these data are not conclusive, since they are unstable and it is very influenced by cultural impact (Sallam, et al., 2020), and sociodemographic context of the sample (Vicol, 2020). ...
Pandemics are a global threat, with vaccination being the main weapon of control. Fear, an unpleasant emotional state caused by a threatening stimulus perception, is known to be behind inhibitory behaviours; being, with mistrust, the basis of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories (CTs). It would be appropriate to know the fear influence on these theories. In this way, a cross-sectional online survey was applied to 2.987 subjects, in a COVID-19 context, characterized by high levels of uncertainty and mistrust, with the aims of analyse the relationship between some anti-vaccine CTs and vaccination intention (VI), also the influence of fear to vaccination (VF) on TCs and VI in this context. As result, all CTs were positive predictors of VF and negative predictors of VI. The correlations were significant (p <0.001), from moderate to high, for all analysed variables, with a significant and moderate directionality and size of association. Regression analysis indicated a moderate and significant explained variance (r2 = 0.54) of CTs + VF in VI. The analysis also indicates that safety and security CTs were more strongly associated with VF (r2 = 0.347) and VI (r2 = 0.46) than other CTs. Obtained results were more significant than those found by other researchers. Knowing in each case the main anti-vaccine CTs and the associated fear can help to plan programs to increase vaccination levels.
... In an Indian study, 60% of the participants thought that illnesses were the result of luck or superstition [34]. In Northern Germany, superstitions were also reported in nearly 40% of men and 70% of women [35]. 70% of people in Africa use folk remedies like charms and witchcraft to treat their illnesses [36]. ...
People must have particular personality traits and social resources, also known as health literacy, in order to access, comprehend, and use information to make decisions about their health. Patients' ability to engage in complex disease management and self-care is strongly related to their level of health literacy. It can help us stay healthy by preventing illness and effectively managing existing illnesses. People with low health literacy (LHL) may find it difficult to manage their condition and prevent illness, which may lead to increased use of healthcare services. Furthermore, LHL is associated with increased hospitalizations, increased use of emergency care, decreased use of preventativ e services, and a worsened ability to understand labels and health messages, a worsened state of health, higher mortality, and more expensive medical care. Introduction Understanding common health care communications, such as prescription instructions, test results, and insurance forms, is referred to as health literacy. Health literacy improves a population's ability to care for themselves and aids in the reduction of health disparities. It has an impact on the use of health services, as well as on patient satisfaction and the physician-patient relationship. It is one of the major impediments to healthcare professionals adequately transmitting information to those under their care. Personal health literacy refers to a person's ability to locate, comprehend, and apply information and services to support health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Health literacy is recommended by the World Health Organization as a tool for achieving several important objectives outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. Many factors can influence a person's health literacy, including knowledge of medical terminology; understanding of how the health care system operates; ability to communicate with health care providers; ability to locate health information, which may be associated with age, income, education, language skills, and culture; and physical or psychological limitations. Health literacy affects treatment adherence, which may have an impact on treatment outcomes. Despite the negative implications of LHL, physicians are typically unaware of their patients' health literacy levels and their subsequent effects on their patients' outcomes.
... Indian study, 60% of the participants thought that illnesses were the result of luck or superstition [34]. In Northern Germany, superstitions were also reported in nearly 40% of men and 70% of women [35]. 70% of people in Africa use folk remedies like charms and witchcraft to treat their illnesses [36]. ...
People must have particular personality traits and social resources, also known as health literacy, in order to access, comprehend, and use information to make decisions about their health. Patients' ability to engage in complex disease management and self-care is strongly related to their level of health literacy. It can help us stay healthy by preventing illness and effectively managing existing illnesses. People with low health literacy (LHL) may find it difficult to manage their condition and prevent illness, which may lead to increased use of healthcare services. Furthermore, LHL is associated with increased hospitalizations, increased use of emergency care, decreased use of preventative services, and a worsened ability to understand labels and health messages, a worsened state of health, higher mortality, and more expensive medical care.
... Finally, although little research has been carried out on the relationship between quality of interpersonal relationships and conspiracy beliefs (Biddlestone et al., 2021), or vice versa, it may be important to examine these variables alongside individuals' emotion dysregulation. Indeed, research has shown that feeling socially excluded is associated with increased conspiracy beliefs (Graeupner & Coman, 2017). Therefore, it might be the case that having supportive interpersonal relationships may mitigate the effect that emotion dysregulation has on the formation of conspiracy beliefs. ...
Conspiracy beliefs typically flourish in threatening situations that evoke negative emotions. In the present research, we hypothesized that conspiracy beliefs may therefore serve as a psychological response to difficulties in the domain of emotion regulation (i.e., dysregulation of emotional experiences, expressions, and responses). This hypothesis was tested among British, American, and Polish participants and conceptually replicated across three studies. Specifically, we examined the associations between difficulties in emotion regulation and belief in general notions of conspiracy (Study 1, n = 391 and Study 2, n = 411) and belief in specific conspiracy theories in (Study 3, n = 558). Across all three studies, difficulties in emotion regulation positively predicted belief in conspiracy theories. These findings suggest that people having more problems with regulating their emotions may be most prone to believing in conspiracy theories.
... Superstitions also reported in close to 40% men and 70% women in Northern Germany [60]. In Africa, 70% of people turn to indigenous treatments such as charms and witchery to treat their illness [61]. ...
... viera v existenciu duchov) presvedčenia. Skúmanie týchto presvedčení má dôležitý význam, keďže majú negatívny vplyv na medziskupinovú dynamiku (Graeupner & Coman, 2017), na zdravie (Jolley & Douglas, 2017), môžu viesť k predsudkom a diskriminácii (Jolley, Mele-ady & Douglas, in press), príp. aj k agresii voči osobám, ktoré sú predmetom konšpirácie (Swami et al., 2012). ...
Cieľom príspevku je poukázať na osobnostné zdroje epistemologicko nepodložených presvedčení (ENP), ktoré majú negatívny dosah ako na jednotlivcov tak aj na spoločnosť. Výskum sa zameriava na osobnostné črty temná triáda: narcizmus, psychopatia a machiavelizmus, a ich súvis s pseudovedeckými, paranormálnymi a konšpiračnými presvedčeniami. Výskumný súbor bol tvorený 829 respondentmi, z čoho bolo 481 (58%) žien, s priemerným vekom 29,98. Údaje boli získané prostredníctvom Škály epistemologicky nepodložených presvedčení a Krátkeho dotazníka Temnej triády. Údaje boli analyzované prostredníctvom lineárnej regresnej analýzy, kde závislé premenné boli tvorené dimenziami ENP a nezávislé premenné Temnou triádou. Ako kontrolné premenné boli súčasťou modelu aj demografické premenné: pohlavie, vek a ukončené vzdelanie. Výsledky regresnej analýzy ukázali, že narcizmus a machiavelizmus spoločne s demografickými premennými sú prediktormi meraných ENP. Spomenuté prediktory vysvetľujú najväčšiu variabilitu hodnôt u konšpiračných presvedčení (19%).
... People might choose to engage with reinforcing online conspiracist communities for social nourishment when they feel isolated or lonely 89 . Evidence that conspiracy beliefs are higher among those experiencing isolation, loneliness and rejection 66,67,90 reinforces the notion that people might be drawn to conspiracy theories to nourish a need for belonging. ...
Conspiracy theories are part of mainstream public life, with the potential to undermine governments, promote racism, ignite extremism and threaten public health efforts. Psychological research on conspiracy theories is booming, with more than half of the academic articles on the topic published since 2019. In this Review, we synthesize the literature with an eye to understanding the psychological factors that shape willingness to believe conspiracy theories. We begin at the individual level, examining the cognitive, clinical, motivational, personality and developmental factors that predispose people to believe conspiracy theories. Drawing on insights from social and evolutionary psychology, we then review research examining conspiracy theories as an intergroup phenomenon that reflects and reinforces societal fault lines. Finally, we examine how conspiracy theories are shaped by the economic, political, cultural and socio-historical contexts at the national level. This multilevel approach offers a deep and broad insight into conspiracist thinking that increases understanding of the problem and offers potential solutions. Conspiracy theories have the potential to undermine governments, promote racism, ignite extremism and threaten public health efforts. In this Review, Hornsey et al. synthesize the literature on factors that shape conspiracy beliefs at the individual, intergroup and national level.
The COVID-19 mobility restrictions, including workplace closures, introduced by national governments led to disruption of social and economic life including job loss. With the job loss, the victims may encounter social and economic threats which can prompt them to show less support for the government that introduced the workplace closures which led to their job loss. Thus, this study investigates whether job loss resulting from COVID-19 prompts COVID-19 anti-cohesive attitudes (dissatisfaction with government’s response to COVID-19, and COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs) in Europe; and whether strictness of workplace closures moderates the first proposition. The focus is on Europe because the degree of job loss and workplace closures vary between countries. With some COVID-19 items from the round 10 data of the European Social Survey conducted between 2021 and 2023, and independent context indices, the propositions are tested using a mixed model having about 142 groups and 25000 observations. The model formula has COVID-19 anti-cohesive attitudes as the response variable, COVID-19 job loss as the predictor variable at individual level, while COVID-19 workplace closures is the context variable. The findings support the hypotheses: COVID-19 job losers (compared to COVID-19 job keepers) are about 20percent more likely to show anti-cohesive attitudes; also, COVID-19 anti-cohesive attitudes are more predominant among COVID-19 job losers where workplace closures are very strict compared to where workplace closures are low. These findings are useful for policy makers in future pandemic management. Also, scientists may find the results useful for research on socioeconomic threats, public policy and cohesive attitudes.
Both ostracism experiences and conspiracy beliefs have been discussed as formative ingredients of radicalization trajectories and violent extremism. The present chapter provides a brief introduction to the psychology of conspiracy beliefs and the connections made to violent extremism. In its central part, it discusses the connection between the two in discussing (1) direct evidence for ostracism experiences increasing conspiracy belief, (2) indirect evidence via highlighting how the four fundamental needs postulated to be threatened by ostracism have also been connected to conspiracy beliefs, and (3) a discussion of the reverse causation of expressing conspiracy beliefs leading to being ostracized. In all sections, specific emphasis will be dedicated to the question of how reliable and strong the available evidence is, with experimental evidence weighing heavier than correlational evidence and repeatedly replicated and meta-analytically robust effect weighing heavier than single demonstrations.
Despite the wealth of information available in this digital age, many people do not double-check their facts, inadvertently propagating misinformation and contributing to the spread of an infodemic. The purpose of this research is to explore the ubiquitous infodemic during pandemics, with an emphasis on the COVID-19 pandemic. The report takes a cursory look at several situations in which misleading information impedes efficient risk health communication during the pandemic, as well as the implications for health professionals and risk communicators in terms of preventing the spread of the coronavirus. It investigates the infodemic that occurred in Nigeria during the COVID-19 pandemic, the factors that may have contributed to it, the impact on health risk communication, particularly in terms of ensuring that healthcare professionals deliver the necessary preventive services, cases of such false information claims, as well as understanding the problem and making recommendations that policymakers and experts can use to avoid similar situations in the future. The paper mandates traditional and new media to provide the public with accurate and evidence-based information.
In recent years, several studies have found that conspiracy believers tend to be more susceptible to cognitive biases (e.g., conjunction fallacy, proportionality bias, agency detection bias, etc.). The aim of this work is to review such literature, systematizing these concepts in a unifying framework of conspiracy mentality as a set of biased cognitive processes, which categorizes cognitive biases in two classes: those that contribute to belief formation and those that contribute to belief updating. Drawing on several empirical results, this paper summarizes the role of cognitive biases in conspiratorial thinking, offering some insights for future research and raising questions about the possible weaknesses of this approach.
Social media use occupies a prominent space in social sciences scholarship and beyond. However, the distinction between active and passive use of social media, although important in explaining a variety of users’ behaviours, has been overlooked in terms of its potential to predict key socially relevant outcomes like beliefs in conspiracy theories. In three studies ( N = 1388, in total), we provide evidence on (a) the role of passive social media use in believing in conspiracy theories via personal relative deprivation; (b) the interaction effect between social media use and personal relative deprivation on beliefs in conspiracy theories. The results showed that passive social media use is linked to, and increases, beliefs in conspiracy theories and this relationship is partially mediated via increased personal relative deprivation (Studies 1 and 2). In Study 3, personal relative deprivation was also manipulated experimentally in the context of a ʻmoderation‐of‐process' design, yielding a significant interaction with social media use. The results are discussed in the light of their social and media psychological contribution and implications in the digital era, when misinformation often becomes prevalent.
This paper presents the results of a study on the Polish version of the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCBS), which was designed to measure individual differences in conspiracist thinking (Brotherton, French, & Pickering; 2013). The Polish version of the scale had excellent internal consistency as measured by Cronbach alpha: .93. The Polish version also had excellent test-retest stability. To check the validity of the questionnaire, various tools were used to measure the characteristics that can be correlated with conspiracist thinking. As a result, it was found that conspiracist thinking is positively correlated with the external locus of control, the results obtained in the Scale of Belief in Zero-Sum Game and the results of the MMPI-2 Paranoia scale. It was also found that patients with paranoid personality disorder and paranoid schizophrenia had higher results on the adapted scale than healthy subjects. In sum, the Polish version of GCBS had satisfactory psychometric properties, which makes it useful for measuring conspiracist thinking.
As a strategy against the outbreak and the further spreading of Covid-19, countries, states and communities used different approaches. To protect citizens, governments developed coronavirus mitigation measures and due to which, people were confronted with restrictions in their everyday life. As could be observed in many countries, the society mood turned, since many people did not agree with these restrictions and some people even started demonstrating against governmental mitigation measures. In this context, it can be assumed that some people are more prone to believe in rumors and fake news spread on social media than others. Consequently, a critical attitude is being developed against the government and/or Covid-19 mitigation measures. The present study uses the quantitative data collection method to investigate why some people change their behavior in crises situations and why they are more prone to believing rumors and fake news on social media than others. The results showed that the higher people rate themselves as being critical, the less they believe in rumors and fake news on social media, the less they change their behavior during the pandemic in terms of rejecting Covid-19 mitigation measures. Therefore, it is also more likely that people will follow the measures to mitigate the effects of coronavirus infection.
This chapter investigates the rapid spread of conspiracy theories, fake news and misinformation. The perpetrators were a heterogeneous grouping from those who genuinely felt aggrieved with the removal of personal freedoms by public health orders rather than by elected government, to long-term convinced anti-vaxxers, ‘sovereign citizens’ who argued no laws apply to them and even Doomsday preppers. Rallies and convoys blocking roads and bridges occurred in many world cities. The major focus was mandated vaccination. The impact of denialism, artificial confirmation bias and paranoia in creating this tumult is discussed. Miracle cures like Ivermectin became a popular online topic. The use of debunking, prebunking and the ‘Bad News’ game to thwart the conspiracy theories and fake news is discussed and shown to be effective.KeywordsConspiracy theoriesFake newsMandated vaccinationDenialismConfirmation biasDebunking
Tarihi uzun yıllar öncesine dayanan yalan bilgi ve haber üretimi, tüketimi ve paylaşımı sorunu, internet teknolojisinin gelişmesiyle birlikte ile tüm dünyayı etkisi altına almaya başlamıştır. Giderek büyüyen bu sorun, insanlığın geleceğini tehdit eden ciddi bir tehlike haline gelme yolundadır. Giderek büyüyen bu sorun, insanlığın geleceğini tehdit eden ciddi bir tehlike haline gelme yolundadır. Farklı zamanlarda yapılan bilimsel araştırmalarda, bu sorununun açıklanması ve anlaşılmasına yönelik teoriler geliştirilmiş, çözüm yolları önerilmiştir. Ancak, farklı bir çok faktörden kaynaklanan olan bu sorunun anlaşılabilmesi için, genel bir bakış açısı ile yapılan çalışmalardan bir adım daha ileriye giderek, bu faktörlerin her birine yönelik çözüm odaklı çalışmalar yapılması gerektiği kanaatindeyiz. Bu varsayımdan hareketle çalışmamızın amacını, şimdiye kadar yapılan araştırmalarda üzerinde gereği kadar durulmayan, bireylerin yaşadığı sosyal dışlanmışlık kaygısının, yalan/sahte bilgi ve haberlerin yaygınlaşmasındaki rolünü incelemek olarak tespit ettik. Bir başka ifadeyle bu çalışmanın amacı yalan haberlerin yaygınlaşmasında, “Sosyal Dışlanmışlık Faktörü”nün oynadığı rolün araştırılmasıdır. Çalışmamızda, insanları yalan/sahte bilgi ve haber paylaşma davranışına yönelten nedenler sorunu, sosyal dışlanmışlık kaygısı örneği üzerinden analiz edilecektir. İlk olarak, araştırmamızın, kavramsal çerçevesini oluşturan ve yalan/sahte haber içeriklerinin yayılmasında çok önemli rol oynadığı varsayılan “yalan/sahte bilgi/ haber, bilgi bozukluğu, yankı odaları ve filtre baloncukları, sosyal dışlanma kaygısı ve doğrulama-onaylama- yanlılığı” gibi kavramların açıklanmasına yer verilecek, ardından bu davranışların açıklanması ve anlaşılmasında yararlanılabilecek Festinger’in “Bilişsel Çelişki”, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’ın geliştirdiği “Suskunluk Sarmalı” kuramları açıklanacak ve bu kuramların “yalan, yanlış ve yanıltıcı bilgi/haber içeriği üretme, tüketme ve paylaşma davranışları”nı açıklamada yetersiz kaldığı noktalar dile getirilecek ve sonrasında da bireylerin “yalan, yanlış ve yanıltıcı bilgi/haber içeriği üretme, tüketme ve paylaşma davranışları” altında yatan sosyal ve psikolojik faktörler ile ilgili yapılan mevcut çalışmalar taranacak ve bu sorunun anlaşılmasına katkıları değerlendirilecektir. Sosyal dışlanmışlık kaygısı, birey üzerinde çok yönlü bir baskı oluşturmaktadır. Birey, bu baskıya karşı kendini koruyabilmek için, kendi kişisel özelliklerine bağlı olarak içgüdüsel olarak geliştirdiği farklı yöntemler uygulayabilmektedir. Bu araştırmamızda, sosyal dışlanmışlık kaygısının neden olduğu baskıya karşı, bireyin kendi görüşüne yakın gruplarla bağlantı kurmaya yönelebileceği, bu amaçla sosyal medyadan destek arama yoluna gidebileceği varsayımı üzerine odaklandık. Bu varsayımdan hareketle, içinde yaşadığı toplum tarafından dışlanan bireyin, bu etkiye karşı herhangi bir tepki göstermeyerek, toplumla bağlarını koparmamaya çalışacağını ancak, bu baskının, kendi doğruları üzerine kurduğu kendi düşünce dünyası (iç dünyası)’nda, kendi doğrularına olan inancını sarsabileceği endişesiyle, social medyada, kendi doğrularına olan inancını güçlendirecek, destekleyecek görüşler aramaya yönelebileceğini ifade ettik. Bu varsayımımızı açıklamak üzere, “Sahte Bilgi/Haber Paylaşma Modeli” adını verdiğimiz bir model geliştirdik. Bu modelden yararlanılarak gerçekleştirilen araştırmamızın, yalan/sahte bilgi ve haberlerin yaygınlaşması sorununa, farklı bakış açısı getiren önemli bir çalışma olduğu kanaatindeyiz.
Conspiracy theorizing can motivate non-normative intentions (e.g., tax evasion and violence). However, less is known about the contributors of these conspiracy-inspired intentions or if they translate into behaviors. Two studies (N = 1,155) found a positive correlation between loneliness and conspiracy theorizing, which in turn related to non-normative intentions. Study 3 (n = 234) provided further evidence of these relationships through serial mediations: participants who remembered a lonely experience (vs. control) reported feeling lonelier, which was positively linked to conspiracy beliefs, and subsequently associated with non-normative intentions and a new behavioral measure (actual tax evasion). While our findings consistently link loneliness to conspiracy theorizing and non-normative actions, future research utilizing longitudinal designs would bolster confidence in our theoretical framework.
Meaning in life is vital for human wellbeing. Research has examined important sources of meaning: however, it has not yet investigated whether certain sources of meaning might be more predictive of overall meaning and wellbeing. A community sample of 247 individuals (30 – 69 years) rated the degree of meaningfulness they experienced in certain domains and completed 11 wellbeing measures. Presence of meaning was positively predicted by family and interpersonal relations, and negatively by leisure activities; search for meaning was positively predicted by personal growth and religiosity/spirituality. Meaning from family and health aided in the process of searching for meaning leading to presence of meaning; similarly, meaning from family, interpersonal relationships, health, religiosity/spirituality and life in general buffered against impoverished wellbeing when searching for meaning. Presence and wellbeing were both higher if the domains of work, family, interpersonal relations, community/society issues, and life in general were highly endorsed. Lastly, highly endorsing a larger number of sources buffered against negative wellbeing outcomes when searching for meaning. Overall, we found that meaning from important domains such as family and interpersonal relationships, and strongly endorsing a wide variety of sources, protected against negative wellbeing outcomes when searching for meaning.
Scientific theories in the natural sciences posit invisible forces operating with measurable effects on physical bodies, but the scientific study of invisible forces acting on human bodies has made limited progress. The topics of sociality, spirituality, and meaning making are cases in point. The authors discuss some of the possible reasons for this as well as contemporary developments in the social sciences and neurosciences that may make such study possible and productive.
For many, religious belief is a source of meaning and a resource for coping with life stressors that have the potential to undercut meaning. In the present study, we sought to further probe the connection between religion and meaning by focusing on the potential for threatened meaning to inspire belief in miraculous testimonials. We threatened meaning with a meaninglessness manipulation and then had participants read testimonials in which people described miraculous experiences involving supernatural agents and rate the extent to which they believed these testimonials to be credible and true. Meaning threat, relative to a control condition, increased belief in miraculous stories.
We hypothesised that belief in conspiracy theories would be predicted by the general tendency to attribute agency and intentionality where it is unlikely to exist. We further hypothesised that this tendency would explain the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories, where lower levels of education have been found to be associated with higher conspiracy belief. In Study 1 (N = 202) participants were more likely to agree with a range of conspiracy theories if they also tended to attribute intentionality and agency to inanimate objects. As predicted, this relationship accounted for the link between education level and belief in conspiracy theories. We replicated this finding in Study 2 (N = 330), whilst taking into account beliefs in paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that education may undermine the reasoning processes and assumptions that are reflected in conspiracy belief.
Threats to control have been found to increase belief in conspiracy theories. We argue, however, that previous research observing this effect was limited in two ways. First, previous research did not exclude the possibility that affirming control might reduce conspiracy beliefs. Second, because of artificial lab procedures, previous findings provide little information about the external validity of the control threat–conspiracy belief relationship. In Study 1, we address the first limitation and find that affirming control indeed reduces belief in conspiracy theories as compared with a neutral baseline condition. In Study 2, we address the second limitation of the literature. In a large-scale US sample, we find that a societal threat to control, that citizens actually experienced, predicts belief in a range of common conspiracy theories. Taken together, these findings increase insight in the fundamental relationship between the human need for control and the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand. The author reviews evidence of such a bias in a variety of guises and gives examples of its operation in several practical contexts. Possible explanations are considered, and the question of its utility or disutility is discussed.
When faced with a significant threat to life people tend to reflect more intensely upon existential issues, such as the meaning and purpose of one’s life. Brain tumor poses a serious threat to a person’s life, functioning and personhood. Although recognised as an important dimension of quality of life, existential well-being is not well understood and reflects an overlooked area of support for people with brain tumor. This perspective article reviews the historical underpinnings of the concept of existential well-being and integrates this discussion with theoretical perspectives and research on meaning making and psychological adjustment to primary brain tumor. We then provide an overview of psychosocial support interventions for people with brain tumor and describe the findings of a recently published psychotherapy trial targeting existential well-being. Overall, this article highlights the importance of assessing the existential support needs of people with brain tumor and their family members, and providing different avenues of support to facilitate the meaning making process across the illness trajectory.
Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand. The author reviews evidence of such a bias in a variety of guises and gives examples of its operation in several practical contexts. Possible explanations are considered, and the question of its utility or disutility is discussed. When men wish to construct or support a theory, how they torture facts into their service! (Mackay, 1852/ 1932, p. 552) Confirmation bias is perhaps the best known and most widely accepted notion of inferential error to come out of the literature on human reasoning. (Evans, 1989, p. 41) If one were to attempt to identify a single problematic aspect of human reasoning that deserves attention above all others, the confirma- tion bias would have to be among the candidates for consideration. Many have written about this bias, and it appears to be sufficiently strong and pervasive that one is led to wonder whether the bias, by itself, might account for a significant fraction of the disputes, altercations, and misun- derstandings that occur among individuals, groups, and nations.
Scientific theories in the natural sciences posit invisible forces operating with measurable effects on physical bodies, but the scientific study of invisible forces acting on human bodies has made limited progress. The topics of sociality, spirituality, and meaning making are cases in point. The authors discuss some of the possible reasons for this as well as contemporary developments in the social sciences and neurosciences that may make such study possible and productive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Counseling psychologists often work with clients to increase their well-being as well as to decrease their distress. One important aspect of well-being, highlighted particularly in humanistic theories of the counseling process, is perceived meaning in life. However, poor measurement has hampered research on meaning in life. In 3 studies, evidence is provided for the internal consistency, temporal stability, factor structure, and validity of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), a new 10-item measure of the presence of, and the search for, meaning in life. A multitrait-multimethod matrix demonstrates the convergent and discriminant validity of the MLQ subscales across time and informants, in comparison with 2 other meaning scales. The MLQ offers several improvements over current meaning in life measures, including no item overlap with distress measures, a stable factor structure, better discriminant validity, a briefer format, and the ability to measure the search for meaning.
A perceiver's actions, although based upon initially erroneous beliefs about a target individual may channel social interaction in ways that cause the behavior of the target to confirm the perceiver's beliefs. To chart this process of behavioral confirmation, we observed successive interactions between one target and two perceivers. In the first interaction, targets who interacted with perceivers who anticipated hostile partners displayed greater behavioral hostility than targets whose perceivers expected nonhostile partners. Only when targets regarded their actions as reflections of personal dispositions did these behavioral differences in hostility persevere into their subsequent interactions with naive perceivers who had no prior knowledge about them. Theoretical implications of the behavioral confirmation construct for social perception processes are discussed.
We argue that infant meaning-making processes are a central mechanism governing both typical and pathological outcomes. Infants, as open dynamic systems, must constantly garner information to increase their complexity and coherence. They fulfill this demand by making nonverbal "meaning"-affects, movements, representations-about themselves in relation to the world and themselves into a "biopsychosocial state of consciousness," which shapes their ongoing engagement with the world. We focus on the operation of the infant-adult communication system, a dyadic, mutually regulated system that scaffolds infants' engagement with the world of people, things, and themselves, and consequently their meaning-making. We argue that infant mental health problems emerge when the meanings infants make in the moment, which increase their complexity and coherence and may be adaptive in the short run, selectively limit their subsequent engagement with the world and, in turn, the growth of their state of consciousness in the long run. When chronic and iterative, these altered meanings can interfere with infants' successful development and heighten their vulnerability to pathological outcomes. Cultural variations in meaning-making and implications for clinical practice are discussed.
Interest in meaning and meaning making in the context of stressful life events continues to grow, but research is hampered by conceptual and methodological limitations. Drawing on current theories, the author first presents an integrated model of meaning making. This model distinguishes between the constructs of global and situational meaning and between "meaning-making efforts" and "meaning made," and it elaborates subconstructs within these constructs. Using this model, the author reviews the empirical research regarding meaning in the context of adjustment to stressful events, outlining what has been established to date and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of current empirical work. Results suggest that theory on meaning and meaning making has developed apace, but empirical research has failed to keep up with these developments, creating a significant gap between the rich but abstract theories and empirical tests of them. Given current empirical findings, some aspects of the meaning-making model appear to be well supported but others are not, and the quality of meaning-making efforts and meanings made may be at least as important as their quantity. This article concludes with specific suggestions for future research.
Competing predictions about the effect of social exclusion were tested by meta-analyzing findings from studies of interpersonal rejection, ostracism, and similar procedures. Rejection appears to cause a significant shift toward a more negative emotional state. Typically, however, the result was an emotionally neutral state marked by low levels of both positive and negative affect. Acceptance caused a slight increase in positive mood and a moderate increase in self-esteem. Self-esteem among rejected persons was no different from neutral controls. These findings are discussed in terms of belongingness motivation, sociometer theory, affective numbing, and self-esteem defenses.
Superstitious behaviours, which arise through the incorrect assignment of cause and effect, receive considerable attention in psychology and popular culture. Perhaps owing to their seeming irrationality, however, they receive little attention in evolutionary biology. Here we develop a simple model to define the condition under which natural selection will favour assigning causality between two events. This leads to an intuitive inequality--akin to an amalgam of Hamilton's rule and Pascal's wager--that shows that natural selection can favour strategies that lead to frequent errors in assessment as long as the occasional correct response carries a large fitness benefit. It follows that incorrect responses are the most common when the probability that two events are really associated is low to moderate: very strong associations are rarely incorrect, while natural selection will rarely favour making very weak associations. Extending the model to include multiple events identifies conditions under which natural selection can favour associating events that are never causally related. Specifically, limitations on assigning causal probabilities to pairs of events can favour strategies that lump non-causal associations with causal ones. We conclude that behaviours which are, or appear, superstitious are an inevitable feature of adaptive behaviour in all organisms, including ourselves.
It is proposed that motivation may affect reasoning through reliance on a biased set of cognitive processes--that is, strategies for accessing, constructing, and evaluating beliefs. The motivation to be accurate enhances use of those beliefs and strategies that are considered most appropriate, whereas the motivation to arrive at particular conclusions enhances use of those that are considered most likely to yield the desired conclusion. There is considerable evidence that people are more likely to arrive at conclusions that they want to arrive at, but their ability to do so is constrained by their ability to construct seemingly reasonable justifications for these conclusions. These ideas can account for a wide variety of research concerned with motivated reasoning.
Significance
Human memory is highly malleable. Because of this malleability, jointly remembering the past along with another individual often results in increased similarity between the conversational partners’ memories. We propose an approach that examines the conversation between a pair of participants as part of a larger network of social interactions that has the potential to reveal how human communities form collective memories. Empirical evidence indicating that dyadic-level conversational alignment processes give rise to community-wide shared memories is presented. We find that individual-level memory updating phenomena and social network structure are two fundamental factors that contribute to the emergence of collective memories.
We hypothesized participants would adopt diverging impression management strategies when interacting with lower- versus higher-status others, to disconfirm status-based stereotypes of their own respective coldness or incompetence. In Study 1, downward comparers downplayed their own competence to appear warmer, and upward comparers downplayed their own warmth to appear more competent. In status comparisons with counter-stereotypical targets, Studies 2a and 2b showed impression management strategies no longer diverge, but effects do not reverse, suggesting a combination of stereotype-disconfirming and target trait-matching goals. Study 3 replicates diverging strategies in downward and upward status comparisons and suggests diverging reasons for these strategies: Downward comparers perceive reason to disconfirm status-based stereotypes, while upward comparers perceive reason to match their comparison target. Together, these studies show mere status differences shift individuals' interaction goals in conveying two central dimensions of impression formation, warmth and competence.
Five studies tested hypotheses derived from the sociometer model of self-esteem according to which the self-esteem system monitors others' reactions and alerts the individual to the possibility of social exclusion. Study 1 showed that the effects of events on participants' state self-esteem paralleled their assumptions about whether such events would lead others to accept or reject them. In Study 2, participants' ratings of how included they felt in a real social situation correlated highly with their self-esteem feelings. In Studies 3 and 4, social exclusion caused decreases in self-esteem when respondents were excluded from a group for personal reasons, but not when exclusion was random, but this effect was not mediated by self-presentation. Study 5 showed that trait self-esteem correlated highly with the degree to which respondents generally felt included versus excluded by other people. Overall, results provided converging evidence for the sociometer model.
We examine the relation between memory and self by considering errors of memory. We draw on the idea that memory's imperfections can be classified into seven basic categories or “sins.” Three of the sins concern different types of forgetting (transience, absent-mindedness, and blocking), three concern different types of distortion (misattribution, suggestibility, and bias), and one concerns intrusive memories (persistence). We focus in particular on two of the distortion-related sins, misattribution and bias. By describing cognitive, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging studies that illuminate these memory sins, we consider how they might bear on the relation between memory and self.
This paper reviews and synthesizes functional imaging research that over the past decade has begun to offer new insights into the brain mechanisms underlying emotion regulation. Toward that end, the first section of the paper outlines a model of the processes and neural systems involved in emotion generation and regulation. The second section surveys recent research supporting and elaborating the model, focusing primarily on studies of the most commonly investigated strategy, which is known as reappraisal. At its core, the model specifies how prefrontal and cingulate control systems modulate activity in perceptual, semantic, and affect systems as a function of one's regulatory goals, tactics, and the nature of the stimuli and emotions being regulated. This section also shows how the model can be generalized to understand the brain mechanisms underlying other emotion regulation strategies as well as a range of other allied phenomena. The third and last section considers directions for future research, including how basic models of emotion regulation can be translated to understand changes in emotion across the life span and in clinical disorders.
Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.
Four studies (N = 643) supported the hypothesis that social exclusion would reduce the global perception of life as meaningful. Social exclusion was manipulated experimentally by having a confederate refuse to meet participants after seeing their videotaped introduction (Study 1) and by ostracizing participants in a computerized ball-tossing game (Study 2). Compared to control condition and acceptance conditions, social exclusion led to perceiving life as less meaningful. Exclusion was also operationalized as self-reported loneliness, which was a better predictor of low meaning than other potent variables (Study 3). Study 4 found support for Baumeister's model of meaning (1991), by demonstrating that the effect of exclusion on meaning was mediated by purpose, value, and positive self-worth.
We present six experiments that tested whether lacking control increases illusory pattern perception, which we define as the identification of a coherent and meaningful interrelationship among a set of random or unrelated stimuli. Participants who lacked control were more likely to perceive a variety of illusory patterns, including seeing images in noise, forming illusory correlations in stock market information, perceiving conspiracies, and developing superstitions. Additionally, we demonstrated that increased pattern perception has a motivational basis by measuring the need for structure directly and showing that the causal link between lack of control and illusory pattern perception is reduced by affirming the self. Although these many disparate forms of pattern perception are typically discussed as separate phenomena, the current results suggest that there is a common motive underlying them.
The Chinese version of the Purpose in Life questionnaire (C-PIL) was administered to 2,150 Chinese secondary school students, along with other instruments assessing psychiatric symptoms and positive mental health. Total C-PIL and its two subscales, Quality of Existence (QEXIST) and Purpose of Existence (PEXIST), correlated significantly with all measures of psychological well-being. Relative to PEXIST scores, QEXIST scores were found to be more predictive of psychological well-being. Subjects with different existential status (defined by high vs. low levels of QEXIST and PEXIST) were associated with different degrees of psychological well-being. The concept of meaning in life, as indexed by the C-PIL, and the hypothesis that life meaning is related to psychological well-being require further elaboration and refinement.
To evaluate the reliability and validity of the PANAS (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988b) and provide normative data.
Cross-sectional and correlational.
The PANAS was administered to a non-clinical sample, broadly representative of the general adult UK population (N = 1,003). Competing models of the latent structure of the PANAS were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. Regression and correlational analysis were used to determine the influence of demographic variables on PANAS scores as well as the relationship between the PANAS with measures of depression and anxiety (the HADS and the DASS).
The best-fitting model (robust comparative fit index = .94) of the latent structure of the PANAS consisted of two correlated factors corresponding to the PA and NA scales, and permitted correlated error between items drawn from the same mood subcategories (Zevon & Tellegen, 1982). Demographic variables had only very modest influences on PANAS scores and the PANAS exhibited measurement invariance across demographic subgroups. The reliability of the PANAS was high, and the pattern of relationships between the PANAS and the DASS and HADS were consistent with tripartite theory.
The PANAS is a reliable and valid measure of the constructs it was intended to assess, although the hypothesis of complete independence between PA and NA must be rejected. The utility of this measure is enhanced by the provision of large-scale normative data.
In this review, I examine the social psychological research on ostracism, social exclusion, and rejection. Being ignored, excluded, and/or rejected signals a threat for which reflexive detection in the form of pain and distress is adaptive for survival. Brief ostracism episodes result in sadness and anger and threaten fundamental needs. Individuals then act to fortify or replenish their thwarted need or needs. Behavioral consequences appear to be split into two general categories: attempts to fortify relational needs (belonging, self-esteem, shared understanding, and trust), which lead generally to prosocial thoughts and behaviors, or attempts to fortify efficacy/existence needs of control and recognition that may be dealt with most efficiently through antisocial thoughts and behaviors. Available research on chronic exposure to ostracism appears to deplete coping resources, resulting in depression and helplessness.
Superstitious beliefs among African Americans
- M Edu
Edu, M. (2014). Superstitious beliefs among African Americans. International Journal of
Education and Social Science, 1(5), 113-118.
Scarcity: Why having too little means so much
- S Mullainathan
- E Shafir
Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. New
York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
- K Williams
Williams, K. (2007). Ostracism. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 425-452.