The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science

By Stephan Lewandowsky, Gilles E. Gignac, Klaus Oberauer. PLoS ONE, 2013

604 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background Among American Conservatives, but not Liberals, trust in science has been declining since the 1970's. Climate science has become particularly polarized, with Conservatives being more likely than Liberals to reject the notion that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the globe. Conversely, opposition to genetically-modified (GM) foods and vaccinations is often ascribed to the political Left although reliable data are lacking. There are also growing indications that rejection of science is suffused by conspiracist ideation, that is the general tendency to endorse conspiracy theories including the specific beliefs that inconvenient scientific findings constitute a “hoax.” Methodology/Principal findings We conducted a propensity weighted internet-panel survey of the U.S. population and show that conservatism and free-market worldview strongly predict rejection of climate science, in contrast to their weaker and opposing effects on acceptance of vaccinations. The two worldview variables do not predict opposition to GM. Conspiracist ideation, by contrast, predicts rejection of all three scientific propositions, albeit to greatly varying extents. Greater endorsement of a diverse set of conspiracy theories predicts opposition to GM foods, vaccinations, and climate science. Conclusions Free-market worldviews are an important predictor of the rejection of scientific findings that have potential regulatory implications, such as climate science, but not necessarily of other scientific issues. Conspiracist ideation, by contrast, is associated with the rejection of all scientific propositions tested. We highlight the manifold cognitive reasons why conspiracist ideation would stand in opposition to the scientific method. The involvement of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science has implications for science communicators.

Subfields: Health, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e482562eab1985e5dc37561c70277e057d8bbf2d

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Citations in the corpus

An examination of the underlying dimensional structure of three domains of contaminated mindware: paranormal beliefs, conspiracy beliefs, and anti-science attitudes (2020, neutral): “…have been mostly studied either independently or in pairs, but they tend to be positively associated (e.g. Browne et al., 2015; Bruder et al. 2013; Darwin et al., 2011; Douglas et al., 2016; Drinkwater et al., 2012; Lewandowsky et al., 2013; Stanovich et al., 2016; van den Bulck & Custers, 2010).”
Modeling Attitudes Toward Science: Development and Validation of the Credibility of Science Scale (2017, methodology): “A measure of free market ideology, originally used by Lewandowsky et al. (2013), was coded such that higher values indicate greater support for the benefits of the free market (e.g., “An economic system based on free markets unrestrained by government interference automatically works best to meet…”
Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI (2024, neutral): “Suchprevalenceis particularly concerning because conspiracy belief is often used as a paradigmatic example of resistance to evidence ( 8 – 10 ): There is little evidence of interventions that successfully debunk con-spiracies among people who already believe them ( 11 , 12 ).”
Attitudes Towards Science (2018, background): “reported to be slightly more pronounced among progressives (Lewandowsky et al., 2013).”
Science Skepticism Across 24 Countries (2021, neutral): “Outcome Variables Domain-specific science skepticism about climate change, vaccination, GM, and evolution was assessed with measures commonly used in previous work (Lewandowsky et al., 2013; Rutjens et al. 5 107 T a b le 2 .”
The conspiracy-effect: Exposure to conspiracy theories (about global warming) decreases pro-social behavior and science acceptance (2015, background): “These findings are consistent with other recent research that has alluded to the notion that conspiracy ideation can lead to the motivated rejection of science and decreased civic engagement (Jolley & Douglas, 2014; Lewandowsky et al., 2013a, 2013c).”
See Something, Say Something: Correction of Global Health Misinformation on Social Media (2018, background): “CI is defined as “ the general tendency to endorse conspi-racy theories ” (Lewandowsky et al., 2013).”
The Psychological Roots of Anti-Vaccination Attitudes: A 24-Nation Investigation (2018, background): “Of the conspiratorial beliefs used by Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer (2013), we measured four that we considered to have worldwide recognition: conspiracies surrounding the assassination of President John Kennedy, the death of Princess Diana, the existence of a New World Order, and American…”
Prebunking interventions based on the psychological theory of “inoculation” can reduce susceptibility to misinformation across cultures. (2020, background): “…language (Bakir & McStay, 2017; Konijn, 2013), polarizing audiences (Bessi et al., 2016; Melki & Pickering, 2014), spreading conspiracy theories (Lewandowsky et al., 2013; van der Linden, 2013), discrediting opponents and deflecting criticism (A’Beckett, 2013), and online trolling (Griffiths,…”