Abandoning conspiracist belief carries a reputational cost among the group

Evidence

These qualities of mind—epistemic closure, or a self-sealing resistance to all challenging facts—also make the new conspiracism difficult to correct and contest. It is all the more difficult in the case of the new conspiracism because so often the “evidence” consists only of bare assertion, “a lot of people are saying.” In addition, there’s the tribal element of the new conspiracism: identification with a group for which conspiracist stories are a regular way of viewing the political world. The tribal element imposes a real cost on changing one’s mind. Call it the reputational obstacle to acknowledging false belief. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 342

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Losing a friend to conspiracism creates a gap no common argumentative ground can bridge. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 299; The believer-disbeliever trust asymmetry is not ordinary ingroup-outgroup antagonism — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 285

Broader Connections

• The believer-disbeliever trust asymmetry is not ordinary ingroup-outgroup antagonism #expands (0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 285