Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Program Name/Specialization

Social Psychology

Faculty/School

Faculty of Arts

First Advisor

Anne E. Wilson

Advisor Role

PhD Supervisor

Abstract

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, trust in mainstream institutions is on the decline while people are increasingly turning to alternative media and conspiracy theories. Previous research has suggested that these trends may be linked, but the exact nature of the relationship is unclear. In a fractured informational environment, is trust a neutral process, where each source is judged independently, or is it in fact a zero-sum competition, where a loss for one side is a gain for the other? Across three experimental studies (N = 2,951) we examined how people react when a source makes a serious error, testing several potential models of trust dynamics. We found that regardless of whether the outlet is mainstream, counter-mainstream, or neutral, trust drops for the erring source but does not rise for its competitors. This was the case in the context of both food regulations and COVID-19 precautions. Such a pattern suggest that each source may be judged independently of others. However, in several cases, an error made by one source led to a loss of trust in all sources, suggesting that rather than just choosing sides between competing sources, people are also judging the media landscape as a whole to discern if it is feasible to find trustworthy information. However, correlational data did also find that the more people saw a source as politicized, the less they trusted that source and the more they trusted its competitors. Accordingly, future research may investigate the impact of perceived political influence as well as the possibility that a zero-sum trust competition between partisan outlets may emerge over a longer timeframe not fully captured by the acute effects of our experiments.

Convocation Year

2024

Convocation Season

Fall

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