PONE-D-23-41311Call it a Conspiracy: How Conspiracy Belief Predicts Recognition of Conspiracy TheoriesPLOS ONE

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1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This is an excellent study. A few minor comments:

1. I think the point could be brought out more that people believe propositions because they think those propositions are true. Since the term conspiracy theory often implies to people that the idea is not true, rarely will people label their own ideas as conspiracy theories. Usually, people like to label other people's ideas a conspiracy theories.

2. Some of the citations were a bit dated and there is some literature that might help make your case. You should cite:

Thalmann, Katharina. 2019. The Stigmatization of Conspiracy Theory since the 1950s:" A Plot to Make Us Look Foolish". New York: Routledge.

Douglas, Karen, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, and Robbie M. Sutton. 2022. "Is the Label ‘Conspiracy Theory’ a Cause or a Consequence of Disbelief in Alternative Narratives?" British Journal of Psychology n/a.

Dentith, M. R. X., G. Husting, and M. Orr. 2023. "Does the Phrase “Conspiracy Theory” Matter?" Society.

3. The writingon the front end could be tightened.

The Heaton quote can go.

Most people believe one or a few conspiracy theories; Oliver and Wood only got 55% because they only asked about 7 cts. If you ask about more cts on a survey, more people believe at least one.

Cts are associated with harms; avoid making the causal argument: Uscinski, Joseph, Adam M. Enders, Casey Klofstad, and Justin Stoler. 2022. "Cause and Effect: On the Antecedents and Consequences of Conspiracy Theory Beliefs." Current Opinion in Psychology 101364. You could just cite the Jolley, Douglas, and Mari piece for consequences too.

4. The normative point should be made in the final discussion section: If an idea qualifies as a a conspiracy theory, does that mean that belief in it is unwarranted? The literature suggests yes Keeley 1999; Levy 2207; Uscinski and Enders 2023. At the same time, being a conspriacy theory does not mean false; rather it just means not proven in some way.

Reviewer #2: This is an interesting paper but I have some worries about the conceptualisation of both the theoretical framework the paper relies upon, and both of the studies.

Let me start with the theoretical framework. The paper assumes that what philosopher Charles Pigden calls a "modern superstition" about conspiracy theories is right - these are theories which are irrational. This is a bit of a problem for the paper, for two reasons: 1. The paper works with a fairly non-pejorative or evaluatively-laden definition of conspiracy theory ("conspiracy theories are explanations for events or circumstances that claim a group of powerful people is working together to accomplish a goal that comes at the expense of others, while attempting to keep their actions or intentions a secret") which admits in true conspiracies as being the subject of conspiracy theories; thus some of the presentation of material in the paper is at odds with itself when it assumes conspiracy theories are bad despite working with a definition that takes no sides. 2. The paper claims "These theories, like the people who believe them, are often considered irrational (McKenzie-McHarg & Fredheim, 2017; Wood & Douglas, 2013), even by the people who study them (Basham & Dentith, 2016; Bjerg & Presskorn-Thygesen, 2017)" - this is a problem because this is a misreading of Basham and Dentith, and probably not a kind reading of Bjerg & Presskorn-Thygesen. These authors have, to varying degrees, argued that the idea conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists are irrational doesn't hold water when you examine said theories or said theorists.

The paper, as it stands, uses the "often" claim in a way that is only representative depending on what literature you admit or do not admit into the pool: in philosophy and sociology, for example, it is not considered prima facie irrational. I would recommend conditionalising this claim to say that in psychology and some of the social sciences the theories and the people who believe them are considered to be irrational, although in other fields of study around conspiracy theories, this claim is hotly contested. See the most recent special issue of Social Epistemology on this topic for details: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tsep20/37/4

This kind of thing is important, especially given the evident misreading of at least one article cited in this paper. It is laudable that the paper works with a non-pejorative definition of conspiracy theory, and so it is important that if the paper wants to pursue an analysis of conspiracy theories under the lens that they are irrational, then the paper needs to point out that despite the value neutral definition some scholars who study conspiracy theories treat them as prima facie or largely irrational. The "some" here is important, as the irrationality of conspiracy theory belief generally is, it turns out, contested.

I also want to push back on another aspect of the pejorative tilt this paper takes: we are told "Belief in conspiracy theories can have serious consequences for public health, the environment, and democracy" and given a list of negative social consequences. But even scholars like Karen Douglas and Robbie Sutton have admitted that there are positive social consequences to belief in conspiracy theories: such as detecting conspiracies (on the definition proposed by this paper Woodward and Bernstein believed a conspiracy theory about the Watergate Affair, one that turned out to be true). Once again, the paper seems to be accepting at face value what merely some of the literature says about conspiracy theories.

This brings me to the short section on the motivating reason hypothesis, and it's slight discussion on labelling practices: there is already quite a lot of literature on the label "conspiracy theory" that should be acknowledged here (see Husting and Orr; Dentith, Husting and Orr; Harambam and Aupers, etc.). This literature suggests that people know their theories will be pejoratively labelled as "conspiracy theories" and it looks at the strategies deployed as a result, or the social consequences of that. Anyone aware of that literature will note that this section elides most of the really interesting discussion here, and thus this section should be revised in light of that. This is especially important because, as this affects how some people might criticise the studies this paper engages in. The considerations and criticisms levied above mean that it is not clear that the conceptualisation of studies 1 and 2 are quite as clean as the paper makes out.

For one thing, it is asserted that "If the motivated reasoning hypothesis is true, then participants will be motivated to take additional time to create justifications for why the conspiracy theories they believe are not conspiracy theories." Why assume this? Why not assume that the readers weren't, for example, trying to work out whether the theory is true, or how well this fits in with their other beliefs? This assumption a) seems arbitrary (it needs to be argue for), and b) it rests upon the assumption that the reader thinks anything labeled as a "conspiracy theory" is likely an irrational belief, and that is, as mentioned above, questioned within the literature. If people are taking their time over a theory labeled or implied to be a "conspiracy theory" and thinking "Should I endorse this or not?" then it is not clear that it is motivated reasoning that is causing delays. It might just be that people are more careful when thinking about conspiracy theories, or are cautious about endorsing them given public opprobrium towards such theories. It does not help that the motivated reasoning account is described again, later in the paper, in a different way.

This problem seems all the more weighty for the second study, as some participants where given a value-neutral definition, yet the paper seems to assume the irrationality of the theories in question because the author of the paper knows which ones they themselves think are true or false. Take the "COVID-19 (“the coronavirus”) was created in a lab in China as a bioweapon" claim; this series of claims is endorsed by various security and intelligence agencies but scorned by medical professionals. We might be able to have a debate as to which set of experts we should listen to, but for the general public their attitude as to how plausible this theory will be might well differ from those of us engaged in conspiracy theory theory research. Or take the "Jeffery Epstein was assassinated to prevent him from sharing information that would harm powerful politicians": I know of researchers in the field of studying conspiracy theory theory who think this is plausible to at least consider (which is not the same as saying it is "Completely true" but such a researcher might mark off on a Likert scales something close to the "Completely true" end).

Now, admittedly, the studies described in this paper indicate that conspiracy blindness, rather than motivated reasoning, is doing most of the work here. But a) the setup as to why we should even take the motivated reasoning account into account is scantly described or motivated and b) we are told that "The results of both Studies 1 and 2 were more consistent with the conspiracy blindness hypothesis than the motivated reasoning hypothesis." This "more consistent with" claim needs to be treated cautiously, because we are also told that some of the results in studies 1 and 2 are inconsistent with the conspiracy blindness hypothesis. What we seem to have here are results that are being interpreted with respect to two hypotheses, one of which is at least poorly motivated/described, and with results not fitting one hypothesis being seen as better fitting the other. Yet the mismatch between the operating (and non-pejorative) definition and the assumption that despite that definition, conspiracy theories really are irrational, seems to be doing a lot of the work when it comes to interpreting the results of these two studies.

In short, I would like to see this paper either grapple with using a non-pejorative definition but a pejorative framework, or mark out that the analysis in the paper is testing some pejorative assumptions in the existing literature. I would also like to see more motivation for the motivating reasoning account, as well as incorporating existing work on how labels might inhibit how people talk about conspiracy theories (including their own), especially since this paper seems to accept one aspect of the labelling debate: that if something is labelled as a "conspiracy theory" it probably is irrational to believe.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Call it a Conspiracy: How Conspiracy Belief Predicts Recognition of Conspiracy Theories

PONE-D-23-41311R1

Dear Dr. Prims,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: I am happy with the changes made to this paper. I also appreciate the author's humility when discussing instances where their intended meaning was opaque, thus leading to some of my and the other reviewer's criticisms. This kind of humility is to be applauded. I have no major worries about this paper now; my only minor concern is that more literature from the social scientists and philosophers who work with non-pejorative definitions could be cited, but this is really just a matter of personal preference.

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Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: M R. X. Dentith

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