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Suspicious binds: Conspiracy thinking and tenuous perceptions of causal connections between co‐occurring and spuriously correlated events

Previous research indicates that conspiracy thinking is informed by the psychological imposition of order and meaning on the environment, including the perception of causal relations between random events. Four studies indicate that conspiracy belief is driven by readiness to draw implausible causal...

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Autores principales: van der Wal, Reine C., Sutton, Robbie M., Lange, Jens, Braga, João P. N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6282862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30555189
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2507
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author van der Wal, Reine C.
Sutton, Robbie M.
Lange, Jens
Braga, João P. N.
author_facet van der Wal, Reine C.
Sutton, Robbie M.
Lange, Jens
Braga, João P. N.
author_sort van der Wal, Reine C.
collection PubMed
description Previous research indicates that conspiracy thinking is informed by the psychological imposition of order and meaning on the environment, including the perception of causal relations between random events. Four studies indicate that conspiracy belief is driven by readiness to draw implausible causal connections even when events are not random, but instead conform to an objective pattern. Study 1 (N = 195) showed that conspiracy belief was related to the causal interpretation of real‐life, spurious correlations (e.g., between chocolate consumption and Nobel prizes). In Study 2 (N = 216), this effect held adjusting for correlates including magical and non‐analytical thinking. Study 3 (N = 214) showed that preference for conspiracy explanations was associated with the perception that a focal event (e.g., the death of a journalist) was causally connected to similar, recent events. Study 4 (N = 211) showed that conspiracy explanations for human tragedies were favored when they comprised part of a cluster of similar events (vs. occurring in isolation); crucially, they were independently increased by a manipulation of causal perception. We discuss the implications of these findings for previous, mixed findings in the literature and for the relation between conspiracy thinking and other cognitive processes.
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spelling pubmed-62828622018-12-14 Suspicious binds: Conspiracy thinking and tenuous perceptions of causal connections between co‐occurring and spuriously correlated events van der Wal, Reine C. Sutton, Robbie M. Lange, Jens Braga, João P. N. Eur J Soc Psychol Special Issue Articles Previous research indicates that conspiracy thinking is informed by the psychological imposition of order and meaning on the environment, including the perception of causal relations between random events. Four studies indicate that conspiracy belief is driven by readiness to draw implausible causal connections even when events are not random, but instead conform to an objective pattern. Study 1 (N = 195) showed that conspiracy belief was related to the causal interpretation of real‐life, spurious correlations (e.g., between chocolate consumption and Nobel prizes). In Study 2 (N = 216), this effect held adjusting for correlates including magical and non‐analytical thinking. Study 3 (N = 214) showed that preference for conspiracy explanations was associated with the perception that a focal event (e.g., the death of a journalist) was causally connected to similar, recent events. Study 4 (N = 211) showed that conspiracy explanations for human tragedies were favored when they comprised part of a cluster of similar events (vs. occurring in isolation); crucially, they were independently increased by a manipulation of causal perception. We discuss the implications of these findings for previous, mixed findings in the literature and for the relation between conspiracy thinking and other cognitive processes. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018-06-26 2018-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6282862/ /pubmed/30555189 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2507 Text en © 2018 The Authors. European Journal of Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
spellingShingle Special Issue Articles
van der Wal, Reine C.
Sutton, Robbie M.
Lange, Jens
Braga, João P. N.
Suspicious binds: Conspiracy thinking and tenuous perceptions of causal connections between co‐occurring and spuriously correlated events
title Suspicious binds: Conspiracy thinking and tenuous perceptions of causal connections between co‐occurring and spuriously correlated events
title_full Suspicious binds: Conspiracy thinking and tenuous perceptions of causal connections between co‐occurring and spuriously correlated events
title_fullStr Suspicious binds: Conspiracy thinking and tenuous perceptions of causal connections between co‐occurring and spuriously correlated events
title_full_unstemmed Suspicious binds: Conspiracy thinking and tenuous perceptions of causal connections between co‐occurring and spuriously correlated events
title_short Suspicious binds: Conspiracy thinking and tenuous perceptions of causal connections between co‐occurring and spuriously correlated events
title_sort suspicious binds: conspiracy thinking and tenuous perceptions of causal connections between co‐occurring and spuriously correlated events
topic Special Issue Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6282862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30555189
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2507
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