scholarly journals Tra i Leoni: Revealing the Preferences Behind a Superstition

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Invernizzi ◽  
Joshua Benjamin Miller ◽  
Tommaso Coen ◽  
Martin Dufwenberg ◽  
Luiz Edgard R. Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
False Beliefs ◽  
Social Conformity ◽  
Value Elicitation ◽  
Influence Behavior

We investigate a superstition for which adherence is nearly universal. Using a combination of field interventions that involve unsuspecting participants and a lab-style value elicitation, we measure the strength of peoples' underlying preferences, and to what extent their behavior is driven by social conformity rather than the superstition itself. Our findings indicate that both mechanisms influence behavior. While a substantial number of people are willing to incur a relatively high individual cost in order to adhere to the superstition, for many, adherence is contingent on the the behavior of others. Our findings suggest that it is the conforming nature of the majority that sustains the false beliefs of the minority.

Psychology in Outerspace

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viren Swami ◽  
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic ◽  
Manal Shafi
Keyword(s):  
Individual Difference ◽  
Sensation Seeking ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Big Five Personality ◽  
Social Conformity ◽  
Extraterrestrial Life ◽  
Paranormal Beliefs ◽  
Future Work

Previous work has shown that is important to consider the disjunction between paranormal and nonparanormal beliefs about extraterrestrial life. The current study examined the association between both such beliefs and individual difference and demographic variables. A total of 555 British participants completed the Extraterrestrial Beliefs Scale, as well as measures of their Big Five personality scores, social conformity, sensation seeking, and demographics. Results showed no sex differences in ratings of paranormal and nonparanormal extraterrestrial beliefs, but participants rated nonparanormal beliefs more positively than paranormal beliefs. Results of structural equation modeling showed that individual difference factors (specifically, Openness, Conscientiousness, and social conformity) explained 21% of the variance in extraterrestrial beliefs, whereas demographic factors (specifically, education level, political orientation, and religiosity) explained 16% of the variance. Limitations and directions for future work are considered.

Do People’s Motives Influence Their Susceptibility to Imagination Inflation?

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie J. Sharman ◽  
Samantha Calacouris
Keyword(s):  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Source Monitoring ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Explicit Motives ◽  
Imagination Inflation ◽  
Motivational Model ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
Affiliation Motives

People are motivated to remember past autobiographical experiences related to their current goals; we investigated whether people are also motivated to remember false past experiences related to those goals. In Session 1, we measured subjects’ implicit and explicit achievement and affiliation motives. Subjects then rated their confidence about, and memory for, childhood events containing achievement and affiliation themes. Two weeks later in Session 2, subjects received a “computer-generated profile” based on their Session 1 ratings. This profile suggested that one false achievement event and one false affiliation event had happened in childhood. After imagining and describing the suggested false events, subjects made confidence and memory ratings a second time. For achievement events, subjects’ explicit motives predicted their false beliefs and memories. The results are explained using source monitoring and a motivational model of autobiographical memory.

Dream interpretation and false beliefs.

1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuliana A. L. Mazzoni ◽  
Pasquale Lombardo ◽  
Stefano Malvagia ◽  
Elizabeth F. Loftus
Keyword(s):  
Dream Interpretation ◽  
False Beliefs

Examining false beliefs about voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 Presidential Election

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Pennycook ◽  
David Gertler Rand
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Election Fraud ◽  
Voter Fraud ◽  
Election News

The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election saw an unprecedented number of false claims alleging election fraud and arguing that Donald Trump was the actual winner of the election. Here we report a survey exploring belief in these false claims that was conducted three days after Biden was declared the winner. We find that a majority of Trump voters in our sample – particularly those who were more politically knowl-edgeable and more closely following election news – falsely believed that election fraud was wide-spread and that Trump won the election. Thus, false beliefs about the election are not merely a fringe phenomenon. We also find that Trump conceding or losing his legal challenges would likely lead a ma-jority of Trump voters to accept Biden’s victory as legitimate, although 40% said they would continue to view Biden as illegitimate regardless. Finally, we found that levels of partisan spite and endorsement of violence were equivalent between Trump and Biden voters.

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