Conspiracy beliefs and analytical thinking in COVID-19 information web search

IF 5.8 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL

Computers in human behavior reports Pub Date : 2025-09-12 DOI:10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100804

Nathan Vital , Aline Chevalier , Cheyenne Dosso , Bastien Trémolière

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The phenomenon of conspiracy theories has seen a considerable increase in popularity on the internet, especially in the health domain. Surprisingly, despite a substantial body of research, none has directly examined the information-search process of conspiracists as they navigate on the Internet. This study examines how conspiracy theorists search for online information (through the Exploration/Exploitation trade-off), using a simulated COVID-19 fact-finding task on vaccine side effects presenting official and conspiracy webpages. The study investigates how conspiracy levels and analytical thinking predict navigational strategies and the acquisition of new knowledge. Results show that analytical thinking predicts the use of exploratory navigation strategies. Analytic thinkers gather more useful information from official webpages and have more confidence in this information. Conversely, conspiracists gather more novel information from conspiracy webpages and have more confidence in these sources. This study offers a novel approach by combining the psychology of belief, reasoning, and Internet information search.

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新冠肺炎信息网络搜索中的阴谋信念与分析思维

阴谋论现象在互联网上越来越受欢迎，尤其是在健康领域。令人惊讶的是，尽管有大量的研究，但没有人直接研究阴谋论者在互联网上浏览时的信息搜索过程。本研究考察了阴谋论者如何搜索在线信息（通过探索/利用权衡），使用模拟COVID-19疫苗副作用实况调查任务，呈现官方和阴谋网页。该研究调查了阴谋水平和分析思维如何预测导航策略和新知识的获取。结果表明，分析性思维预示着探索性导航策略的使用。分析型思考者从官方网站收集更多有用的信息，并对这些信息更有信心。相反，阴谋论者从阴谋网页收集更多的新信息，并对这些来源更有信心。本研究将信念心理学、推理心理学和网络信息搜索心理学相结合，提供了一种新颖的方法。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Computers in human behavior reports Psychology (General)

CiteScore

7.80

自引率

0.00%

发文量