If someone has fallen down the rabbit hole of intrigue, there are few proven ways to pull them out, according to a new analysis.
This study is a review of research on attempts to counter conspiratorial thinking and found that common strategies, including rebuttals and fact-checking, have largely failed to change people’s beliefs. Promising methods seem to involve prevention, either warning people in advance about certain conspiracy theories or explicitly teaching them how to spot poor evidence.
“Unfortunately, we’re still in the early stages of finding a silver bullet to combat misinformation as a whole,” says Cian O’Mahony, a Ph.D. student in psychology at University College Cork, Ireland, who led the study. . It was published in PLOS ONE magazine today.
It’s important to counter conspiratorial beliefs because they can encourage people to behave in ways that are harmful, says Kathleen, professor of communications and director of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. Hall Jamieson says He is not involved in the new review. For example, those who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen. And those who believe in the COVID vaccine conspiracy are putting themselves at risk of disease by refusing to be vaccinated. But the field is so young, Jamieson says, that trying to compare individual studies presents challenges.
“There are so many different definitions and specifications of conspiracy beliefs and conspiracy mindsets that it is very difficult to aggregate this data in a way that can be generalized,” she says. is a thought-provoking starting point, adds Jamieson, but should not be seen as the final word on conspiratorial intervention.
Research often blurs the lines between conspiracy theory, disinformation, and misinformation, says O’Mahony. Misinformation is simply inaccurate information, while misinformation is deliberately misleading. As O’Mahony and his colleagues define, conspiracy beliefs include any belief involving malicious actors involved in secret conspiracies to explain important events. Such beliefs are not necessarily false, but real conspiracy theories do happen.
O’Mahony and his colleagues focused their research on conspiracy beliefs rather than misinformation and disinformation. They found 24 of his studies in 13 papers. The majority of these papers were conducted in the United States or the United Kingdom, but some were conducted elsewhere and most used online samples with participants from various countries. In nearly two-thirds of the studies, researchers sought to change the general willingness to believe in conspiracies, while the rest addressed individual beliefs.
There were several categories of interventions. One consisted of a priming study, in which an unrelated task was used to change someone’s mindset. This requires more work to capture information and encourages an analytical mindset. The researchers then present participants with conspiracy theories to see if the task lowers their beliefs. In general, it had only marginal effects. Alternative strategies against conspiracy theories based on facts also had very small or minor effects. The least effective arguments involved appealing to the sympathies of believers or ridiculing their beliefs.
More promising was the inoculation study, which forewarned people that they might see conspiracy theories and gave them arguments against them. These had a moderate to large impact on the reduction of conspiracy beliefs. However, vaccination can be counterproductive. One study found that if conspiracy peddlers warned against an inoculation approach, that inoculation no longer worked. Author Joseph Uscinski says that politicians use this “inoculate against inoculation” strategy in the real world. new analysis. For example, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that teachers often tell students, “Anyone who says it’s not happening is lying.
Another challenge is to see if vaccinations and other strategies work in the long term, says Karen Douglas, a social psychologist at the University of Kent in England. In many studies investigating this method, scientists measure immediate effects but don’t follow up over days, weeks, or months. “We need to know that interventions are long-lasting in order to be able to respond effectively.”
The best opportunities to avoid conspiratorial thinking may be the most labor-intensive. In the new analysis, one of the biggest effects came from a study that included his three-month college coursework aimed at distinguishing science from pseudoscience. In this study, three instructors taught students the critical thinking skills necessary to understand common human mistakes in perception and logic. As a result, conspiracy beliefs decreased. “This was a singular study, but it emphasized teaching these skills explicitly,” says O’Mahony.
If entrenched conspiracy beliefs are hard to change, the silver lining is that, contrary to popular belief, it’s also hard to get people to believe in conspiracies, says Uscinski. A colleague published a study in PLOS ONE that found no evidence of conspiracy beliefs growing despite visibility on social media. It is difficult to change all kinds of fixed beliefs, especially when those beliefs are closely tied to someone’s worldview. That’s why I do what I want,” he adds.
For individuals interested in challenging conspiracy theories, the authors of the new review offer some tips.
- Don’t be emotional. This research suggests that emotional strategies do not help sway beliefs.
- Don’t get carried away with factual arguments. The authors found that discussions of the facts of conspiracy theories and the consequences of believing in a particular conspiracy also failed to make much of a difference.
- Focus on prevention. The best strategy is to allow people to recognize unreliable information and unreliable sources before exposing them to certain beliefs.
- Support education and analysis. Leading people to an analytical mindset and clearly teaching them how to evaluate information seems to provide the most protection from the rabbit holes of intrigue.
