The role of truth relativist and realist views in bullshit receptivity, conspiracy ideation and the distribution of science misinformation

Abstract Despite the growing concern with ‘post-truth’ attitudes in today’s society, the role of belief in truth relativism has been surprisingly neglected in the psychology of misinformation. In the current research, we replicated findings of positive correlations between belief in (subjectivist) truth relativism and bullshit receptivity and conspiracy ideation, respectively. Introducing a new paradigm for investigating the tendency to distribute misinformation, we also found novel evidence that belief in truth relativism was positively related to distributing science misinformation and negatively related to distributing accurate science information. Moreover, our results revealed that belief in truth realism was negatively correlated with distributing science misinformation. These effects held up over and above competing predictors. Both social conservatism and economic right-wing ideology were positively associated with conspiracist ideation and distribution of science misinformation but not bullshit receptivity. Our attempt to induce epistemic beliefs to examine their causal impact on misinformation susceptibility and distribution was, however, largely unsuccessful. Future research on the receptivity to and distribution of misinformation should acknowledge the role of epistemic beliefs in general and subjectivist truth relativism in particular.