Many people hold beliefs about phenomena that are difficult or impossible to explain using established scientific knowledge or methods, such as telepathy or conspiracy theories. This project investigates the associations between such irrational beliefs and perceptual, cognitive, and personality factors, and also how the social media context influences the evaluation of ambiguous information.
Many people hold beliefs about subjects which are difficult or impossible to explain with established knowledge or scientific methods, such as paranormal phenomena (telepathy) or believe in conspiracy theories (e.g. that powerful secret groups exist who control or influence political and economical decisions). Such beliefs can lead to maladaptive behaviour. For example, we showed that conspiracy beliefs are a strong predictor for the violation of COVID-19 preventive measures. This project focuses on the association of such irrational beliefs with perceptual, cognitive and personality aspects in the context of (social) media usage (e.g. falling for and distributing fake news or misinformation). In a series of ongoing studies, we investigate
- whether seeing illusory patterns in noise is an underlying mechanism of irrational beliefs affecting perception, cognition and decision making,
- the impact of cognitive load in the evaluation of ambiguous information
- the role of context information on social media contents, such as the source, number of likes, and user comments, on news evaluation.
Publication in peer-reviewed journal
- Müller, P., & Hartmann, M. (2023). Linking paranormal and conspiracy beliefs to illusory pattern perception through signal detection theory. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 9739, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-36230-0
- Hartmann, M., & Müller, P. (2023). Illusory perception of visual patterns in pure noise is associated with COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. i-Perception, 14(1), 20416695221144732, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20416695221144732
- Hartmann, M., & Müller, P. (2023). Acceptance and adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures are shaped predominantly by conspiracy beliefs, mistrust in science and fear–A comparison of more than 20 psychological variables. Psychological Reports, 126(4), 1742-1783, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00332941211073656
