Intention Seekers: Conspiracist Ideation and Biased Attributions of Intentionality

Conspiracist beliefs are widespread and potentially hazardous. A growing body of research suggests that cognitive biases may play a role in endorsement of conspiracy theories. The current research examines the novel hypothesis that individuals who are biased towards inferring intentional explanations for ambiguous actions are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories, which portray events as the exclusive product of intentional agency. Study 1 replicated a previously observed relationship between conspiracist ideation and individual differences in anthropomorphisation. Studies 2 and 3 report a relationship between conspiracism and inferences of intentionality for imagined ambiguous events. Additionally, Study 3 again found conspiracist ideation to be predicted by individual differences in anthropomorphism. Contrary to expectations, however, the relationship was not mediated by the intentionality bias. The findings are discussed in terms of a domain-general intentionality bias making conspiracy theories appear particularly plausible. Alternative explanations are suggested for the association between conspiracism and anthropomorphism

People like me don’t belong here: Concealing a stigmatized identity is associated with negative workplace experiences

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.In two studies, we examined the impact of concealing (vs. revealing) a stigmatized identity in the context of a recalled or imagined social interaction with one’s coworkers. We propose that although people may choose to conceal stigmatized identities in order to increase their chances of acceptance and belonging, identity concealment in fact reduces feelings of belonging and results in negative work-related outcomes. Participants possessing a concealable stigmatized identity (in Study 1: LGB identity, N=95; in Study 2, LGBT identity, history of mental illness, history of physical illness, or history of poverty, N=303) were randomly assigned to recall or imagine concealing or revealing their identity at work. We found that concealing (vs. revealing) the identity reduced felt belonging in the recalled or imagined situation, collective self-esteem, job satisfaction, and work-related commitment. Thus, despite its promise to protect individuals against workplace discrimination, identity concealment is associated with deleterious outcomes

Perceptual biases in relation to paranormal and conspiracy beliefs

Previous studies have shown that one’s prior beliefs have a strong effect on perceptual decision-making and attentional processing. The present study extends these findings by investigating how individual differences in paranormal and conspiracy beliefs are related to perceptual and attentional biases. Two field studies were conducted in which visitors of a paranormal conducted a perceptual decision making task (i.e. the face / house categorization task; Experiment 1) or a visual attention task (i.e. the global / local processing task; Experiment 2). In the first experiment it was found that skeptics compared to believers more often incorrectly categorized ambiguous face stimuli as representing a house, indicating that disbelief rather than belief in the paranormal is driving the bias observed for the categorization of ambiguous stimuli. In the second experiment, it was found that skeptics showed a classical ‘global-to-local’ interference effect, whereas believers in conspiracy theories were characterized by a stronger ‘local-to-global interference effect’. The present study shows that individual differences in paranormal and conspiracy beliefs are associated with perceptual and attentional biases, thereby extending the growing body of work in this field indicating effects of cultural learning on basic perceptual processes