{"id":717,"date":"2007-01-22T23:20:49","date_gmt":"2007-01-22T23:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/717"},"modified":"2007-01-22T23:20:49","modified_gmt":"2007-01-22T23:20:49","slug":"what-you-dont-know-can-influence-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/717","title":{"rendered":"What you don&#8217;t know can influence you"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Along the lines of <a href=\"http:\/\/www3.niu.edu\/~tj0bjs1\/papers\/sc04.pdf\">a study on the effects of advertising<\/a> that I <a href=\"http:\/\/docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/000699.html\">mentioned<\/a> earlier, a forthcoming <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/news\/stories\/article-current.php?id=karendouglasconspiracytheories.txt\">University of Kent study<\/a> suggests that people are more influenced by conspiracy theories than they think they are, and that this hidden influence may actually contribute to the tenacity of such theories:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>After reading internet-based conspiracy theories about the death of Princess Diana, research participants agreed more strongly with statements such as \u2018there was an official campaign by MI6 to assassinate Diana, sanctioned by elements of the establishment\u2019. When asked how much they would have agreed with those statements prior to reading the conspiracy theories, they \u2018revised\u2019 their prior attitudes so that they were closer to their current attitudes \u2013 this made it appear as though their attitudes had changed less than they actually had.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Our findings suggest that conspiracy theories may actually have a \u2018hidden impact\u2019, meaning that they powerfully influence people\u2019s attitudes whilst people do not know it; outwardly they may deny the extent to which they have been influenced but in truth they tend to endorse the new information and pass it on to others.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>(Link via <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/cognitivedaily\/2007\/01\/in_other_news.php\">Cognitive Daily<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Along the lines of <a href=\"http:\/\/www3.niu.edu\/~tj0bjs1\/papers\/sc04.pdf\">a study on the effects of advertising<\/a> that I <a href=\"http:\/\/docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/000699.html\">mentioned<\/a> earlier, a forthcoming <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/news\/stories\/article-current.php?id=karendouglasconspiracytheories.txt\">University of Kent study<\/a> suggests that people are more influenced by conspiracy theories than they think they are, and that this hidden influence may actually contribute to the tenacity of such theories:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>After reading internet-based conspiracy theories about the death of Princess Diana, research participants agreed more strongly with statements such as \u2018there was an official campaign by MI6 to assassinate Diana, sanctioned by elements of the establishment\u2019. When asked how much they would have agreed with those statements prior to reading the conspiracy theories, they \u2018revised\u2019 their prior attitudes so that they were closer to their current attitudes \u2013 this made it appear as though their attitudes had changed less than they actually had.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Our findings suggest that conspiracy theories may actually have a \u2018hidden impact\u2019, meaning that they powerfully influence people\u2019s attitudes whilst people do not know it; outwardly they may deny the extent to which they have been influenced but in truth they tend to endorse the new information and pass it on to others.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>(Link via <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/cognitivedaily\/2007\/01\/in_other_news.php\">Cognitive Daily<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-and-brain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}