#conspiracybelief
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mdmarques.com
good morning! here's a new preprint led by @matthewmatix.bsky.social on a fascinating idea about sincere responding on #conspiracybelief studies. together a bunch of us (it's all Matt) take a look at whether we can identify sincerity and whether it distorts known effect sizes

osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
February 8, 2026 at 11:13 PM
mdmarques.com
nice to be part of this multidisciplinary and international team led by Justin Phillips (nz), @timgravelle.bsky.social (ca), @acarson.bsky.social & me investigating whether facebook's 3rd party fact-checking increases #conspiracybelief

TLDR; it doesn't really.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Figure 1. Treatment and control images Image on the left shows mobile phone on facebook page with a section indicating false information checked by independent fact-checkers blurring out a photo. Image on the right is control image, of a facebook login screen. Figure 2. Simple slopes, Facebook fact-check treatment, conspiracy mentality, and ideology. This analysis indicated that our fact-check treatment increases perceptions of Facebook-related conspiracy beliefs, but only among participants who score highest on conspiracy mentality and who also identify as very conservative. The simple slope for this group is positive and significant (b = 0.079, s.e. = 0.040, p = 0.049). When either (or both) conspiracy mentality or ideology are at different values, the effect of the Facebook fact-check treatment is not significant (see Figure 2). Figure 3. Simple slopes, Facebook fact-check treatment, conspiracy mentality, and party identification This analysis indicated that our fact-check treatment increased perceptions of Facebook-related conspiracy beliefs, but primarily among Independents who either scored high or scored low on conspiracy mentality (see Figure 3). The fact-check treatment pushes these two groups in opposite directions: while Independents in the control condition closely resembled Republicans, they diverged substantially when exposed to the Facebook fact-check treatment. Specifically, those scoring highest on conspiracy mentality were more likely to agree with the statement that Facebook is manipulating the public through fact-checks (b = 0.181, s.e. = 0.077, p = 0.019), while those who scored lowest were less likely to agree with such a belief (b = −0.315, s.e. = 0.110, p = 0.004).
January 29, 2026 at 10:58 PM
mdmarques.com
awesome to see this publication from the Trust in Science and Populism many labs work led by Daniel Toribio-Flórez out. A nice piece extending our understanding of the link between individual victimhood and #conspiracybelief

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Victims of Conspiracies? An Examination of the Relationship Between Conspiracy Beliefs and Dispositional Individual Victimhood
Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the indi....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
July 18, 2025 at 6:30 AM
jamoeberl.bsky.social
To all people who follow me from some #StarterPack only to unfollow after seeing my posts about #Austria 🇦🇹 #COVID 🦠 #Politics 🗳️ #Media 📺 #Disinformation 🤥 #Populism 📣 #ScienceTrust 🔬 #ConspiracyBelief 🌀 #Birds 🐦 #BoardGames 🎲, or other 'silly' stuff...🤷‍♂️
It's OK. I will not be holding a grudge 🫣
a man with a beard wearing a suit and a white shirt is looking at the camera .
Alt: JaMoEberl, wearing a suit and a white shirt looking angrily at the camera while it zooms in.
media.tenor.com
November 17, 2024 at 3:05 PM
jamoeberl.bsky.social
Hi there,
I am Jakob. I do research on #Elections, #MediaBias, #Polcomm, #Populism, #Media&Migration, #ConspiracyBelief & the #Pandemic. I am based at #UNIVIE. My other interests include #Boardgames & #Birds. I’ll communicate in #German & #English & will mostly try to do some SciComm here.👋🏻
July 3, 2023 at 10:23 AM