The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of public support for non-pharmaceutical public health interventions and the perils of rampant spread of misinformed or conspiratorial beliefs. Open-minded epistemic attitudes may be associated with adherence to public health recommendations and protect against holding false beliefs. In a large (N = 49 968, 68 countries) global sample collected during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic we find that open-minded people are less likely to accept conspiracy theories about the disease, more likely to engage in physical distancing, more likely to engage in hygienic behaviors such as hand-washing, and more likely to support public health policies such as closing dangerous indoor spaces such as restaurants and bars. In fact, out of seventeen potential individual difference measures, open-mindedness turns out to be the strongest predictor for rejecting conspiracy beliefs, and supporting physical distancing, and policy support and among the strongest for physical hygiene. In exploratory analyses, we find that public health support is associated with a learning oriented factor of open-mindedness while conspiratorial beliefs are associated with a threat oriented factor of open-mindedness. We further find that the effect of threat oriented open-mindedness interacts with participants' left-right political orientation. These results suggest that it will be important to investigate whether open-mindedness can be cultivated or encouraged through educational or other interventions to ensure that public health is protected and that conspiracy theories about COVID-19 do not spread.

The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of public support for non-pharmaceutical public health interventions and the perils of rampant spread of misinformed and conspiratorial beliefs. Open-minded epistemic attitudes may be associated with adherence to public health recommendations and protect against holding false beliefs. In a large (N = 46,745 from 68 countries) global sample collected during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that a six-item self-report measure of open-mindedness predicts decreased belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, increased physical distancing, increased engagement in recommended hygienic behaviors, and increased support for public health policies that aimed at decreasing COVID-19 transmission. In fact, out of 17 individual difference measures that we examined, open-mindedness proved to be the strongest or among the strongest predictors of rejecting conspiracy beliefs, of supporting physical distancing and public health policies, and of engaging in physical hygiene behaviors. In exploratory analyses of the open-mindedness measure, we found that public health support is associated with a learning-orientedfactor while conspiratorial beliefs were associated with a threat-oriented factor. These results suggest that it will be important to investigate whether open-mindedness can be cultivated or encouraged through educational or other interventions to ensure that public health is protected and that conspiracy theories do not spread.

Intellectual virtues such as intellectual humility are dispositions to seek out and respond to evidence and the testimony of others in ways that are conducive to the acquisition, maintenance, and transmission of knowledge. In recent years there has been a growth of interest in this topic, with the development of ten different scales designed to capture individual differences in intellectual humility and related constructs. In a series of ten studies (N = 5,922), we analyze the psychometric properties of these measures to consolidate them into a single inventory with five subscales (open-mindedness, sense of intellectual superiority, intellectual defensiveness, intellectual arrogance, and tendency to criticize one’s ingroup). Given the importance of intellectual humility in intergroup relations, we intentionally include items designed to capture the presence (or lack) of intellectual humility in an intergroup context. These items allow us to capture distinct aspects of intellectual humility where people remain open-minded about the perspectives of outgroup members or turn a critical eye to the beliefs and reasoning of ingroup members. Our new inventory — the Collected Intergroup Intellectual Humility scale (CIIH) — demonstrates good convergent and discriminant validity, as well as the power to predict a range of important outcome variables such as acceptance/rejection of warranted/unwarranted conspiracy theories, medical (mis)information, and (fake) news, as well as to update credences in light of social feedback. CIIH offers strong psychometric properties and greater utility than existing measures for assessing the willingness to learn from a wide variety of individuals and groups. Our results suggest that the disposition to criticize oneself and the disposition to criticize one’s ingroup are distinct.

Calls to amplify marginalized voices are common. In this paper, we examine these calls by paying close attention to how the structure of online environments shape practices of amplification, and what this means for political communication and digital activism. We develop a conceptual and normative framework for understanding amplification as a technologically mediated practice of digital activism by answering three questions. Firstly, what is amplification, in the sense that features in calls to amplify marginalized voices? Second, what is at stake in amplifying well or badly? Third, how should those to whom calls to amplify are addressed respond? In answering the first question, we develop an account of amplification by exploiting an analogy with the amplification of sound in acoustics. In answering the second question, we identify several benefits of amplifying well and costs of amplifying badly. In answering the third question, we identify several heuristics that can be employed to increase the chances of achieving the benefits of successful amplification and reduce the chances of unsuccessful amplification.

In this paper, we explore the social dynamics of trust, mistrust, trustingness, and trustworthiness. In a well-functioning group or institution, especially a group dedicated to inquiry (e.g., scientists, journalists), systematic mistrust by enough people ensures that most epistemic agents are in fact trustworthy, which in turn means that default trustingness outside of one’s area of expertise is a reasonable disposition or stance to adopt. At the same time, this means that in a poorly-functioning group that lacks systematic mistrust by enough people, default trustingness is not rational. We then argue that we should reject as too stringent any assumption that default trustingness amounts to irrational gullibility for three reasons. First, whether default trustingness is gullible depends on the norms and practices of the social epistemic structure in which one finds oneself. Second, people are often justified in trusting even when some might regard that trust as gullible. Third, we should be more stringent in policing epistemic norms, and in empowering, honoring, and rewarding what Nietzsche calls the “police of mistrust.” This is because default trustingness is only rationally justified when such mistrust is systematic and those who do the policing are not wrongly defamed.

This paper examines the potential educational uses of chat-based large language models (LLMs), moving past initial hype and skepticism. Although LLM outputs often evoke fascination and resemble human writing, they are unpredictable and must be used with discernment. Several metaphors—like calculators, cars, and drunk tutors—highlight distinct models for student interactions with LLMs, which we explore in the paper. We suggest that LLMs hold a potential in students’ learning by fostering proleptic reasoning through scaffolding, i.e., presenting a technological accompaniment in anticipating and responding to potential objections to arguments. Here, the technical limitations of LLMs can be reframed as beneficial when fostering anticipatory reasoning. Whether their outputs are accurate or not, evaluating them stimulates learning. LLMs require students to critically engage, emphasizing analytical thinking over mere memorization. This interaction helps solidify knowledge. Additionally, we explore how engaging with LLMs can prepare students for constructive collective discussions and provide first steps in addressing epistemic injustices by highlighting potential research blind spots. Thus, while acknowledging the sociopolitical and ethical complexities of using LLMs in education, we suggest that when used in an informed way, they can promote critical thinking through anticipatory reasoning.

Beginning with the Untimely Meditations (1873) and continuing until his final writings of 1888–1889, Nietzsche refers to humility (Demuth or a cognate) in fifty-two passages and to modesty (Bescheidenheit or a cognate) in one hundred and four passages, yet there are only four passages that refer to both terms. Moreover, perhaps surprisingly, he often speaks positively of modesty, especially in epistemic contexts. These curious facts might be expected to lead scholars to explore what Nietzsche thinks of humility and modesty, but to date there have been no systematic analyses of Nietzsche’s reflections on these dispositions. This chapter fills that gap in the literature, using semantic network analysis and systematically guided close reading. In so doing, this chapter shows that Nietzsche sharply distinguished between humility and modesty, considering the former a vice (for certain types of people in certain contexts) and the latter a virtue (again, for certain types of people in certain contexts).

Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as public health, new technologies or climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science-society nexus across different geographical and cultural contexts, we undertook a cross-sectional population survey resulting in a dataset of 71,922 participants in 68 countries. The data were collected between November 2022 and August 2023 as part of the global Many Labs study “Trust in Science and Science-Related Populism” (TISP). The questionnaire contained comprehensive measures for individuals’ trust in scientists, science-related populist attitudes, perceptions of the role of science in society, science media use and communication behaviour, attitudes to climate change and support for environmental policies, personality traits, political and religious views and demographic characteristics. Here, we describe the dataset, survey materials and psychometric properties of key variables. We encourage researchers to use this unique dataset for global comparative analyses on public perceptions of science and its role in society and policy-making.

What is the prevalence of moral themes in textual corpora? Most previous moral mining research has been informed by Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). Here, we develop and evaluate an alternative moral mining tool based on the theory of Morality as Cooperation (MAC), using crowd-sourced annotations and the web-based hybrid content annotation platform, the Moral Narrative Analyzer (MoNA). We compare the empirical performance of the extended Morality as Cooperation Dictionary (eMACD) with previous dictionaries, including the extended Moral Foundations Dictionary (eMFD), across ten validation analyses, encompassing diverse corpora that include news media, journal entries, presidential speeches, social media, and movies. We find that eMACD outperforms previous dictionaries in most cases. We conclude that eMACD is an important addition to the methodological toolkit of researchers examining moral content in textual data, and we provide eMACDscore - a Python-based moral mining tool - to facilitate future research.

Research on support for climate policies has predominantly focused on support for mitigation policies. Research remains scarce on public support for climate aid policy (i.e., adaptation policies that direct support to those most affected by climate change). The justice implications of unmitigated climate change loom large, yet it is currently unclear to what extent people view climate change as an inequality issue. To investigate this, we surveyed participants from the United Kingdom (n = 531), United States (n = 528), Australia (n = 1450), and New Zealand (n =1022) on attitudes about climate change inequality, experiences of climate emotions, support for climate aid policy, and political orientation. Those who reported greater agreement that climate change is an inequality issue also reported experiencing more intense negative emotions about climate change and greater support for climate aid policy. We propose a theoretical model whereby political conservatives are less likely to see climate change as an inequality issue, which could account for their lower support for climate aid policy and their more muted emotional response to climate change. We find preliminary support for this model using mediation analyses. Our findings suggest that in these four nations, beliefs about the inequality in who causes climate change and who suffers its worst consequences may be relevant to community support for the implementation of climate aid policy.

This 68-country survey (n = 71,922) examines science information diets and communication behavior, identifies cross-country differences, and tests how such differences are associated with sociopolitical and economic conditions. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most countries, except those with democratic-corporatist media systems where news media tend to be used more widely. People in collectivist societies are less outspoken about science in daily life, whereas lower education is associated with higher outspokenness. Limited access to digital media is correlated with participation in public protests on science matters. We discuss implications for future research, policy, and practice.

Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most people trust scientists and agree that scientists should engage more in society and policymaking. We found variations between and within countries, which we explain with individual- and country-level variables, including political orientation. While there is no widespread lack of trust in scientists, we cannot discount the concern that lack of trust in scientists by even a small minority may affect considerations of scientific evidence in policymaking. These findings have implications for scientists and policymakers seeking to maintain and increase trust in scientists.

Introduction:Lived experience of negative environmental change can evoke distress called 'solastalgia'. Worldwide, people are reporting emotional challenges relating to awareness of current and continued environmental decline, even without a direct experience of climate change. Our research examines the measurement of anticipatory solastalgia: the experience of present distress about expected environmental change. Methods:Our preregistered research uses survey samples from Australia (n = 1450) and New Zealand (n = 1022) to validate a recently developed five-item Anticipatory Solastalgia Scale (the ANSOS). We also measured participants' experiences of climate emotions, expectations of the increased severity of climate-related weather disasters, and support for climate policy. Results:The ANSOS fits the data well, is invariant across these two countries, and shows good internal consistency. Supporting convergent validity, the more that participants reported experiencing anticipatory solastalgia, the more intensely they reported feeling negative emotions about climate change. ANSOS scores were higher among those who expected more severe future impacts from climate-related weather disasters, and positively related to support for policies that aim to address climate change. Conclusion:The study adds further evidence for the validity of the anticipatory solastalgia scale; a measure that is designed to facilitate understanding of people's distress responses to the expectations of, and emotional engagement with, environmental threats as the climate changes.

We develop an account of bullshit questions that draws on the literature on bullshit assertions. We distinguish bullshit questions from other sorts of anomalous questions. According to our account, bullshit questions are characterized chiefly by the indifference of the speaker to the truth of any answer she might receive. Instead, the bullshit questioner is up to something else, typically a non-interrogative illocutionary act such as introducing a presupposition, insinuating a derogatory sentiment, implying a proposition, making an accusation, or flirting. If this is right, it naturally raises the normative question of whether and how bullshit questions are wrong and whether and how bullshit questioners are blameworthy and vicious. In the final section, we address these questions, arguing that bullshit questions are pro tanto wrong because they tend to thwart inquiry, manifest the vice of epistemic insouciance (which is a disregard for truth or inquiry), express disrespect for the epistemic agency of the interlocutor, introduce epistemic malaise, and lead to the opening of dangerous inquiries by gullible audiences. We then consider some cases in which the pro tanto wrongness of bullshit questioning is arguably overridden by competing reasons.

Background: Intellectual humility, as one of the important components of personality, plays a decisive role in decision-making, learning, and social interactions. Despite its importance, there are still limited valid tools for measuring this construct across the cultural context of Iran. Aims: The present study aimed to explore the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Intellectual Humility Scale of Alfano et al. (2017) among Iranian adults. Methods: The study was descriptive-correlational. The statistical population included all adults in West Azerbaijan province in 2024. A sample of 573 people (19 to 72 years old) was selected using the Cochrane formula and a cluster-random sampling method. The instruments used included the Intellectual modesty Scale (Alfano et al., 2017), the Honesty-Humility subscale of the Hexagon-60 questionnaire (Ashton and Lee, 2009), Openness to Experience from the Big Five (Costa and McCrae, 1992), and the Need for Cognition Questionnaire (Cacioppo and Petty, 1982). Data analysis was undertaken using SPSS-22 and LISREL 8.80. For factor structure analysis, the sample was split into two parts; Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed on the first part, while Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed on the second part. Results: In the exploratory factor analysis, four factors of “open-mindedness”, “intellectual humility”, “corrigibility”, and “engagement” were identified, which were consistent with the theoretical structure of the scale. The CFA results confirmed the favorable fit of the model (fit indices are reported). Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability coefficients were higher than 0.70 and the average variance extracted (AVE) was higher than 0.50. Also, the McDonald's omega coefficient for the dimensions was obtained between 0.71 and 0.84. The scale indicated a significant positive correlation with honesty-humility, need for cognition and openness to experience at the 0.01 level, reflecting its convergent and concurrent validity. Conclusion: The findings demonstrated that the Intellectual Humility Scale has good validity and reliability across the Iranian adult community and can be used as a valid tool in psychological research. However, the limitations of the study include focusing on one province and the self-report nature of the tools. It is suggested that future studies be conducted across more diverse communities and via multimodal methods.

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 individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim, i.e., victim justice sensitivity (VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370, 373) indicated a positive association between VJS and conspiracy mentality beyond conceptually related covariates (e.g., mistrust). In a multinational sample from 15 countries (N = 14,978), VJS was positively associated with both general and specific conspiracy beliefs (about vaccines and climate change) within countries, though these associations varied across countries. However, economic, sociopolitical and cultural country-level factors that might explain the cross-country variability (e.g., GDP, Human Freedom Index, individualism-collectivism), including indices of collective exposure to direct violence, did not moderate the studied associations. Future research should investigate the relationship between victimhood and conspiracy beliefs, considering both intraindividual and intergroup perspectives.

This study compares public trust in climate scientists and scientists in general across 68 countries ( N = 69,534). On average, participants reported moderately high levels of trust in climate scientists, with trust levels being slightly lower than trust in scientists in general. Overall, this trust gap was larger among participants who identified as politically conservative or right-leaning, but there was considerable variation across countries.

At least since Francis Bacon, the slogan 'knowledge is power' has been used to capture the relationship between decision-making at a group level and information. We know that being able to shape the informational environment for a group is a way to shape their decisions; it is essentially a way to make decisions for them. This paper focuses on strategies that are intentionally, by design, impactful on the decision-making capacities of groups, effectively shaping their ability to take advantage of information in their environment. Among these, the best known are political rhetoric, propaganda, and misinformation. The phenomenon this paper brings out from these is a relatively new strategy, which we call slopaganda. According to The Guardian, News Corp Australia is currently churning out 3000 'local' generative AI (GAI) stories each week. In the coming years, such 'generative AI slop' will present multiple knowledge-related (epistemic) challenges. We draw on contemporary research in cognitive science and artificial intelligence to diagnose the problem of slopaganda, describe some recent troubling cases, then suggest several interventions that may help to counter slopaganda.

Climate change is currently one of humanity’s greatest threats. To help scholars understand the psychology of climate change, we conducted an online quasi-experimental survey on 59,508 participants from 63 countries (collected between July 2022 and July 2023). In a between-subjects design, we tested 11 interventions designed to promote climate change mitigation across four outcomes: climate change belief, support for climate policies, willingness to share information on social media, and performance on an effortful pro-environmental behavioural task. Participants also reported their demographic information (e.g., age, gender) and several other independent variables (e.g., political orientation, perceptions about the scientific consensus). In the no-intervention control group, we also measured important additional variables, such as environmentalist identity and trust in climate science. We report the collaboration procedure, study design, raw and cleaned data, all survey materials, relevant analysis scripts, and data visualisations. This dataset can be used to further the understanding of psychological, demographic, and national-level factors related to individual-level climate action and how these differ across countries.