Exposure to Credibility-Enhancing Displays Predicts Adoption of Conspiracy Beliefs

Abstract

Conspiracy beliefs appear endemic to human culture. These beliefs cause real harm to the individuals who espouse them and to their communities. To date much of the scholarly focus on conspiracy beliefs has been limited to a set of cognitive factors implicated in the adoption of these beliefs (e.g., intelligence, cognitive thinking style). Recent developments in a related field (the Cognitive Science of Religion) offer a potentially more accurate model of belief which considers cultural-evolutionary biases that modulate the transmission of information. This study investigated the role that one type of learning bias, the credibility-enhancing display (CRED), has on conspiracy belief transmission. CREDs were found to be the strongest predictor of conspiracy belief in a nationally representative sample of 1024 participants from the United States. Additionally, exposure to CREDs increased believers’ conviction about their beliefs. Conservatism, and reduced cognitive reflection to a lesser extent, also predicted conspiracy belief, in concordance with existing literature.