Pseudoscientific Beliefs, Social Influence Sensitivity, and Future Anxiety: A Multi-Group Analysis based on Social Media Status Checking Frequency
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The present study examined future anxiety, social influence sensitivity, and differences related to others' social media status or story-checking frequency (OSMSSCF) as correlates of university students' pseudoscientific beliefs. Data collected from 331 university students were analyzed with PLS-SEM, followed by multigroup comparisons. The findings showed that as future anxiety increased, students reported stronger tendencies toward social learning-social proof and social comparison, yet social learning-social proof was not associated with pseudoscientific belief dimensions in the overall model. By contrast, social comparison was linked to higher levels of belief in “astrology,” “fortune-telling and mediumship,” and “quantum thinking,” whereas its association with “sending messages to the universe” was not statistically significant in the full sample. Group comparisons showed that OSMSSCF reliably differentiated only one part of this pattern: belief in sending messages to the universe was predicted by social learning-social proof among students with low OSMSSCF, and by social comparison among those with high OSMSSCF, whereas the remaining associations did not differ reliably between the groups. Overall, the findings suggest that future anxiety may primarily fuel pseudoscientific beliefs through social comparison, and that the frequency with which students monitor others on social media is more closely related to the underlying social influence mechanism of a specific belief than to the overall strength of these relationships.
DOI: 10.54535/rep.1961891
Institution: Necmettin Erbakan University
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7204160378