{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101534"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101534","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Trust in science is not the answer to conspiracies: It’s throwing water on a grease-fire","abstract":"Conspiracy theories can be quite dangerous and have risen in prevalence. The rise of conspiracy theories has been met with an outcry to increase public trust in science. However, using trust in science to stop conspiracy theories may have unintended negative consequences. Trust in science entails the blind acceptance of information based on the inclusion vs. exclusion of scientific content. This, combined with the fact that many conspiracy theories contain scientific content, suggests that trust in science may actually increase belief in conspiracy theories that contain science. Thus, we hypothesized that trust in science would interact with the presence of scientific content to predict beliefs and dissemination, such that individuals high in trust in science would depend more on the presence of scientific content in their judgments of legitimacy. In Experiment 1, we gave 148 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers articles varying on presence of scientific content and conspiratorial nature and measured their beliefs in the article. Participants high in trust in science were more likely to believe in the articles containing science and less likely to believe in the conspiratorial articles. In Experiment 2, we gave 73 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers exclusively conspiratorial articles varying on presence of scientific content and measured their beliefs in the articles, as in Experiment 1, and dissemination decisions. A significant interaction was found between trust in science and presence of scientific content on both beliefs in and dissemination of the articles, such that those high in trust in science were more likely to believe in and disseminate articles that contained science. These findings suggest that while trust in science may be beneficial in certain respects, when conspiracy theories contain scientific content, it can be detrimental.","abstract_html":"Conspiracy theories can be quite dangerous and have risen in prevalence. The rise of conspiracy theories has been met with an outcry to increase public trust in science. However, using trust in science to stop conspiracy theories may have unintended negative consequences. Trust in science entails the blind acceptance of information based on the inclusion vs. exclusion of scientific content. This, combined with the fact that many conspiracy theories contain scientific content, suggests that trust in science may actually increase belief in conspiracy theories that contain science. Thus, we hypothesized that trust in science would interact with the presence of scientific content to predict beliefs and dissemination, such that individuals high in trust in science would depend more on the presence of scientific content in their judgments of legitimacy. In Experiment 1, we gave 148 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers articles varying on presence of scientific content and conspiratorial nature and measured their beliefs in the article. Participants high in trust in science were more likely to believe in the articles containing science and less likely to believe in the conspiratorial articles. In Experiment 2, we gave 73 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers exclusively conspiratorial articles varying on presence of scientific content and measured their beliefs in the articles, as in Experiment 1, and dissemination decisions. A significant interaction was found between trust in science and presence of scientific content on both beliefs in and dissemination of the articles, such that those high in trust in science were more likely to believe in and disseminate articles that contained science. These findings suggest that while trust in science may be beneficial in certain respects, when conspiracy theories contain scientific content, it can be detrimental.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Palmer, Ryan"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Albarracín, Dolores"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2018,"date_issued":"2018-09-27T16:17:40Z","date_published":"2018-09-27T16:17:40Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:40Z","subjects":["conspiracy theory","trust in science"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2018 Ryan Palmer"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101534","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Albarracín, Dolores"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Palmer, Ryan"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2018-09-27T16:17:40Z","2018-07-06","2018-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Psychology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["conspiracy theory","trust in science"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2018 Ryan Palmer"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101534"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Conspiracy theories can be quite dangerous and have risen in prevalence. The rise of conspiracy theories has been met with an outcry to increase public trust in science. However, using trust in science to stop conspiracy theories may have unintended negative consequences. Trust in science entails the blind acceptance of information based on the inclusion vs. exclusion of scientific content. This, combined with the fact that many conspiracy theories contain scientific content, suggests that trust in science may actually increase belief in conspiracy theories that contain science. Thus, we hypothesized that trust in science would interact with the presence of scientific content to predict beliefs and dissemination, such that individuals high in trust in science would depend more on the presence of scientific content in their judgments of legitimacy. In Experiment 1, we gave 148 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers articles varying on presence of scientific content and conspiratorial nature and measured their beliefs in the article. Participants high in trust in science were more likely to believe in the articles containing science and less likely to believe in the conspiratorial articles. In Experiment 2, we gave 73 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers exclusively conspiratorial articles varying on presence of scientific content and measured their beliefs in the articles, as in Experiment 1, and dissemination decisions. A significant interaction was found between trust in science and presence of scientific content on both beliefs in and dissemination of the articles, such that those high in trust in science were more likely to believe in and disseminate articles that contained science. These findings suggest that while trust in science may be beneficial in certain respects, when conspiracy theories contain scientific content, it can be detrimental.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2018-09-27 without embargo terms","The student, Ryan Palmer, accepted the attached license on 2018-07-05 at 16:51.","The student, Ryan Palmer, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2018-07-05 at 16:54.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2018-07-06 at 15:24.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #12743 on 2018-09-27 at 10:46:53","Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-27T16:17:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 PALMER-THESIS-2018.pdf: 357944 bytes, checksum: e58b04a4d77fb7b51e20569ebaa27240 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4208 bytes, checksum: 8242e50026d518c7616eefe08236f0f6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-07-06"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Trust in science is not the answer to conspiracies: It’s throwing water on a grease-fire"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Albarracín, Dolores"],"dc:creator":["Palmer, Ryan"],"dc:date":["2018-09-27T16:17:40Z","2018-07-06","2018-08"],"dc:description":["Conspiracy theories can be quite dangerous and have risen in prevalence. The rise of conspiracy theories has been met with an outcry to increase public trust in science. However, using trust in science to stop conspiracy theories may have unintended negative consequences. Trust in science entails the blind acceptance of information based on the inclusion vs. exclusion of scientific content. This, combined with the fact that many conspiracy theories contain scientific content, suggests that trust in science may actually increase belief in conspiracy theories that contain science. Thus, we hypothesized that trust in science would interact with the presence of scientific content to predict beliefs and dissemination, such that individuals high in trust in science would depend more on the presence of scientific content in their judgments of legitimacy. In Experiment 1, we gave 148 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers articles varying on presence of scientific content and conspiratorial nature and measured their beliefs in the article. Participants high in trust in science were more likely to believe in the articles containing science and less likely to believe in the conspiratorial articles. In Experiment 2, we gave 73 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers exclusively conspiratorial articles varying on presence of scientific content and measured their beliefs in the articles, as in Experiment 1, and dissemination decisions. A significant interaction was found between trust in science and presence of scientific content on both beliefs in and dissemination of the articles, such that those high in trust in science were more likely to believe in and disseminate articles that contained science. These findings suggest that while trust in science may be beneficial in certain respects, when conspiracy theories contain scientific content, it can be detrimental.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2018-09-27 without embargo terms","The student, Ryan Palmer, accepted the attached license on 2018-07-05 at 16:51.","The student, Ryan Palmer, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2018-07-05 at 16:54.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2018-07-06 at 15:24.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #12743 on 2018-09-27 at 10:46:53","Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-27T16:17:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 PALMER-THESIS-2018.pdf: 357944 bytes, checksum: e58b04a4d77fb7b51e20569ebaa27240 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4208 bytes, checksum: 8242e50026d518c7616eefe08236f0f6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-07-06"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101534"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2018 Ryan Palmer"],"dc:subject":["conspiracy theory","trust in science"],"dc:title":["Trust in science is not the answer to conspiracies: It’s throwing water on a grease-fire"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Psychology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.S."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:40Z"}