The DOI matches its Crossref record; 103 of the 105 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Analytic thinking reduces belief in conspiracy theories
Open accessAbstract
Belief in conspiracy theories has been associated with a range of negative health, civic, and social outcomes, requiring reliable methods of reducing such belief. Thinking dispositions have been highlighted as one possible factor associated with belief in conspiracy theories, but actual relationships have only been infrequently studied. In Study 1, we examined associations between belief in conspiracy theories and a range of measures of thinking dispositions in a British sample (N=990). Results indicated that a stronger belief in conspiracy theories was significantly associated with lower analytic thinking and open-mindedness and greater intuitive thinking. In Studies 2-4, we examined the causational role played by analytic thinking in relation to conspiracist ideation. In Study 2 (N=112), we showed that a verbal fluency task that elicited analytic thinking reduced belief in conspiracy theories. In Study 3 (N=189), we found that an alternative method of eliciting analytic thinking, which related to cognitive disfluency, was effective at reducing conspiracist ideation in a student sample. In Study 4, we replicated the results of Study 3 among a general population sample (N=140) in relation to generic conspiracist ideation and belief in conspiracy theories about the July 7, 2005, bombings in London. Our results highlight the potential utility of supporting attempts to promote analytic thinking as a means of countering the widespread acceptance of conspiracy theories.
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“Conspiracy belief is correlated with lower levels of analytic thinking (Swami, Voracek, Stieger, Tran, & Furnham, 2014)”
From The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories (2017) · cites this paper as Swami, Voracek, Stieger, Tran, & Furnham, 2014
In the citing paper
“Recent research has linked individual differences in analytic thinking with skepticism about various epistemically suspect information, such as fake news (Pennycook & Rand, 2019;2020), religious and paranormal beliefs (Pennycook et al., 2016;Shenhav et al., 2012), conspiracy theories (Swami et al., 2014), and pseudo-profound bullshit (Pennycook et al., 2015;Pennycook & Rand, 2020).”
From The detection of political deepfakes (2022) · cites this paper as Swami et al., 2014
In the citing paper
“This result extends prior research that associated analytic thinking with higher scrutiny towards other post-truth phenomena, such as fake news (Pennycook & Rand, 2019, 2020) and conspiracy theories (Swami et al., 2014).”
From The detection of political deepfakes (2022) · cites this paper as Swami et al., 2014
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2019) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.011 · Cited by 2,022
“…account has shown that analytic thinking is correlated with skepticism about a wide range of epistemically suspect claims (reviewed in Pennycook, et al., 2015a; Pennycook, 2018), such as those pertaining to supernatural beliefs (Pennycook et al., 2012) and conspiracy theories (Swami et al., 2014).”
Pennycook, G., McPhetres, J., Zhang, Y., Lu, J. G., & Rand, D. G. (2020) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797620939054 · Cited by 1,715
Understanding Conspiracy Theories
Douglas, K. M., Uscinski, J. E., Sutton, R. M., Cichocka, A., Nefes, T., Ang, C. S., & Deravi, F. (2019) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.12568 · Cited by 1,511
“In the United States, Uscinski and Parent (2014) found that higher levels of conspiracy thinking correlate with lower levels of education and lower levels of income.”
BackgroundSusceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world
Roozenbeek, J., Schneider, C. R., Dryhurst, S., Kerr, J., Freeman, A. L. J., Recchia, G., van der Bles, A. M., & van der Linden, S. (2020) · Royal Society Open Science · doi:10.1098/rsos.201199 · Cited by 1,447
“Although some literature finds that higher numeracy facilitates rather than protects against motivated cognition [37], our findings are consistent with a large literature which finds that reflective and analytical thinking are consistently associated with reduced susceptibility to misinformation [33,34,69].”
ResultThe Psychology of Conspiracy Theories
Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., & Cichocka, A. (2017) · Current Directions in Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0963721417718261 · Cited by 1,316
Metadata
- Authors
- Swami, V., Voracek, M., Stieger, S., Tran, U. S., & Furnham, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Westminster (GB)
- University of Vienna (AT)
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Swami, Viren
- Venue
- Cognition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-12
- Volume
- 133
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 572-585
- ISSN
- 0010-0277 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1965444852
- Cited by
- 726
- References
- 105
- Citations by year
- 2026: 49 · 2025: 77 · 2024: 81 · 2023: 71 · 2022: 122 · 2021: 100 · 2020: 94 · 2019: 43 · 2018: 37 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 15
- FWCI
- 55.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- nbn-resolving.de
- Locations
- Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- WestminsterResearch (University of Westminster) (acceptedVersion)
- KOPS (University of Konstanz) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Keywords
- conspiracy theories, analytical thinking, conspiracist ideation, intuitive thinking, open-mindedness, verbal fluency
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Culture, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Personality, Thinking, Young Adult
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