Associations Between Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories, Miracles, and Susceptibility to the Fallacy of Conjunction

First published: June 29, 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3860

Explanation

The results of another study showed that supporters of conspiracy theories tend to perceive logical product fallacies, events in the logical product more likely than events in the construct.

Accordingly, this study was content to investigate the relationship between specific beliefs (conspiracy theory beliefs, religiosity) and susceptibility to conjunction errors (CE) in specific domains.

A total of 500 participants were presented with brief scenarios from the domains of "coronavirus conspiracy," "miraculous cure," and the control condition.

Each scenario contained one statement about an individual event and a second statement about two joint events occurring simultaneously, and participants estimated the probability of each statement.

The results showed that the number of CEs created in the coronavirus domain was only associated with beliefs in conspiracy theories, while religion in general was only associated with CEs in scenarios describing miraculous healings.

According to the beliefs assessed, they were not associated with CEs in the control condition, suggesting that distinct beliefs are uniquely associated with susceptibility to conjunction errors in a particular domain.