School of Psychology, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, 4701 W Thunderbird Rd, Glendale, AZ, 85069, USA.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2020 Dec 11;5(1):65. doi: 10.1186/s41235-020-00264-z.
Past research suggests that an uncritical or 'lazy' style of evaluating evidence may play a role in the development and maintenance of implausible beliefs. We examine this possibility by using a quasi-experimental design to compare how low- and high-quality evidence is evaluated by those who do and do not endorse implausible claims. Seven studies conducted during 2019-2020 provided the data for this analysis (N = 746). Each of the seven primary studies presented participants with high- and/or low-quality evidence and measured implausible claim endorsement and evaluations of evidence persuasiveness (via credibility, value, and/or weight). A linear mixed-effect model was used to predict persuasiveness from the interaction between implausible claim endorsement and evidence quality. Our results showed that endorsers were significantly more persuaded by the evidence than non-endorsers, but both groups were significantly more persuaded by high-quality than low-quality evidence. The interaction between endorsement and evidence quality was not significant. These results suggest that the formation and maintenance of implausible beliefs by endorsers may result from less critical evidence evaluations rather than a failure to analyse. This is consistent with a limited rather than a lazy approach and suggests that interventions to develop analytical skill may be useful for minimising the effects of implausible claims.
过去的研究表明，对证据的不加批判或“懒惰”的评估方式可能在不可信信念的形成和维持中起作用。我们通过使用准实验设计来比较那些支持和不支持不可信主张的人如何评估低质量和高质量的证据，从而检验这种可能性。这项分析的数据来自于 2019 年至 2020 年期间进行的七项研究（N=746）。这七项主要研究中的每一项都向参与者展示了高质量和/或低质量的证据，并测量了不可信主张的支持和对证据说服力的评估（通过可信度、价值和/或权重）。使用线性混合效应模型根据不可信主张的支持和证据质量之间的交互作用来预测说服力。我们的结果表明，支持者比非支持者更受证据的影响，但两组人都更受高质量证据的影响，而不是低质量证据。支持和证据质量之间的相互作用并不显著。这些结果表明，支持者形成和维持不可信信念可能是由于对证据的评估不够批判性，而不是由于未能进行分析。这与有限的而不是懒惰的方法一致，并表明开发分析技能的干预措施可能有助于最大限度地减少不可信主张的影响。
