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Interconnectedness and (in)coherence as a signature of conspiracy worldviews
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Miani, Alessandro, Hills, Thomas Trenholm and Bangerter, Adrian (2022) Interconnectedness and (in)coherence as a signature of conspiracy worldviews. Science Advances, 8 (43). eabq3668. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abq3668 ISSN 2375-2548.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abq3668
Abstract
Conspiracy theories may arise out of an overarching conspiracy worldview that identifies common elements of subterfuge across unrelated or even contradictory explanations, leading to networks of self-reinforcing beliefs. We test this conjecture by analyzing a large natural language database of conspiracy and nonconspiracy texts for the same events, thus linking theory-driven psychological research with data-driven computational approaches. We find that, relative to nonconspiracy texts, conspiracy texts are more interconnected, more topically heterogeneous, and more similar to one another, revealing lower cohesion within texts but higher cohesion between texts and providing strong empirical support for an overarching conspiracy worldview. Our results provide inroads for classification algorithms and further exploration into individual differences in belief structures.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology | ||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Conspiracy theories, Connectionism, Conspiracy, Conspiracy theories -- Psychological aspects, Conspiracy theories -- Social aspects | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Science Advances | ||||||
Publisher: | American Association for the Advancement of Science | ||||||
ISSN: | 2375-2548 | ||||||
Official Date: | 26 October 2022 | ||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 8 | ||||||
Number: | 43 | ||||||
Article Number: | eabq3668 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.1126/sciadv.abq3668 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 1 September 2022 | ||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 1 November 2022 | ||||||
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