Social prevalence information is rationally integrated in belief updating
Year: 2021
Type: preprint
Abstract: People rely heavily on information from the social world to inform their real-world beliefs. We ask whether the perceived prevalence of a belief, divorced from any direct evidence, serves as an independent cue in belief updating. Using real-world pseudoscientific and conspiratorial claims, our experiment (N = 403 American adults) shows that increases in people’s estimates of the prevalence of a belief led to increases in their endorsement of said belief. Belief change was most dramatic when initial beliefs were most uncertain and when novel prevalence information was most convincing, suggesting that people weigh social information rationally with other information sources. We discuss the implications of our results in the context of online misinformation.
Source: PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Authors: Evan Orticio, Louis Martí, Celeste Kidd
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4210692641