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Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Previous research shows that the propensity to endorse conspiracy theories is associated with disrupted forms of epistemic trust, i.e., the appropriate openness towards interpersonally communicated information. There are associations, first, with an increased mistrust in several actors and institutions responsible for the communication of information in society, and second, with a pronounced credulity in unreliable sources and implausible phenomena (e.g., superstition, astrology). This study aims to investigate whether these phenomena are associated with specific personality-related disruptions of epistemic trust. Based on selfreported data of 417 individuals (mean = 33.28; standard deviation = 11.11) from a UK population sampled online, the potential relationships between disruptions in epistemic trust and the endorsement of a conspiracy mentality are explored. The epistemic stances characterized by mistrust and credulity (independent variables) are measured with the epistemic trust, mistrust, and credulity questionnaire (ETMCQ), and conspiracy mentality (dependent variable) is measured with the conspiracy mentality questionnaire. In a multiple linear regression model, mistrust is associated with the endorsement of a conspiracy mentality, even when accounting for other contributing factors (e.g., individual narcissism, attachment avoidance and anxiety, authoritarianism, loneliness). In a bootstrapped mediation model controlling for other relevant predictors, the association between credulity and conspiracy mentality is fully mediated by mistrust. In future research, the impact of disrupted epistemic trust on conspiracy beliefs should be investigated in terms of the specific epistemic stances of mistrust and credulity. In this respect, the ETMCQ represents a highly promising instrument to assess individual differences in factors underpinning aspects of conspiracy endorsement.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced rapidly in the past decade. The arrival of ChatGPT last year has pushed the debate about AI into the public sphere. ChatGPT, and similar tools, do things we once thought were outside the ability of computers. This raises questions for how we educate people about the capability and the limitations of such tools. This article provides an overview of artificial intelligence and explores what ChatGPT is capable of doing. It also raises questions about morality, responsibility, sentience, intelligence, and how humans' propensity to anthropomorphise makes us gullible and thus ready to believe that this technology is delivering something that it cannot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: to reveal the essence and significance of the historical experience of interdisciplinary study of crime and its use in modern conditions of scientific support of crime prevention.Methods: dialectical method and system-synergetic approach, the method of retrospection in the study and evaluation of historical facts of the complex development of scientific directions in the legal doctrine of crime and punishment; dogmatic and empirical methods determining the specifics of scientific approaches to the general subject of research, their critical analysis; comparative historical assessment of the integration of criminal-legal sciences at various stages of accumulation and development of their scientific potential; prognostic assessment of the preventive capabilities of the criminal-legal sciences within the frameworks of 5.1.4 scientific major.Results: in modern criminal jurisprudence, there are ambiguous research approaches to the perception and evaluation of some scientific provisions. On the one hand, in retrospection, the phenomena are observed which are unproductive in relation to science or generally useless for it (due to uncriticism or formalism). On the other hand, retrospection, being methodologically justified, serves the scientific perspective, in particular, the development of associative links of criminal-legal sciences, and the activation of the historically determined general scientific function of criminology. These processes, if scientifically optimized, have the prospect of bringing the energies of criminal-legal sciences and relevant practices to a resultant effect, i.e. to a well-coordinated system of combating crime. This is what the aspirations of the founders of the new legal science of crime are aimed at.Scientific novelty: the possibilities are substantiated of developing a number of aspects of interdisciplinary (within the framework of the 5.1.4 scientific major) research of crime regularities, of developing and implementing special measures of counteraction in the parameters of criminological and political support. A retrospective analysis of some criminological provisions in their historical connections initiates a deeper understanding of the painful issues that are covered by the category of “crime” (in the individual and cumulative meanings of this term). Initially, there were three main directions of theoretical and applied legal doctrine about crime in the scientific world of criminal justice: dogmatic-legal, criminological-legal and political-legal. Analytical reflections in the parameters of retrospection lead to the comprehension of a very complex nature of the evolution of scientific thought.Practical significance: the theoretical provisions may equip practice; namely, they form a higher and more sustainable level of criminological, or rather, criminological-political thinking, without which effective criminal-legal (legislative, law enforcement) practice is impossible.

Objective: Starting from May 2022, a growing number of monkeypox cases have been identified in several countries in Europe and the United States. To date, information on social reaction to the news circulating about monkeypox is limited. Assessing psychological and social elements related to the tendency to misinterpret monkeypox information is urgent and useful in setting up tailored education and prevention programs for specific populations. The present study aims to explore the association of selected psychological and social variables to monkeypox attitudes as fake news. Methods: Three hundred and thirty-three participants (212 women, 110 men, and 11 other genders) from the general Italian population completed nine self-report measures. Results: Results showed that people that were more likely to believe that monkeypox was a hoax were: older, heterosexual, politically conservative, and more religious. Moreoverm they were more likely to show more negative attitudes toward gay men, higher levels of sexual moralism, less knowledge and fear about monkeypox, no previous infections of COVID-19, lower number of COVID-19 vaccine doses, and being closer to no-vax theories. On the psychological side, participants that were more likely to believe that the monkeypox was a hoax were associated with lower levels of epistemic trust and order traits, with higher levels of epistemic mistrust, close-mindedness, and ability to process emotions. A full mediation model which explores the relationships between the main variables related to fake news attitudes toward monkeypox was tested, reporting good fit indices. Conclusion: Results from the current study could be helpful to improve the effectiveness of health communication, design targeted education, and support people to engage in healthier behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fourth Amendment protects people against "unreasonable searches" by police. To operationalize this protection, courts must have a workable definition of a search. Since 1967, the Supreme Court has used the two-step Katz test as a primary measure of when a search has occurred. Under Katz, a court will find that something has been subject to search when (1) the individual in question has a subjective expectation of privacy in that thing and (2) such an expectation of privacy would be reasonable. From early on, commentators have decried the Katz test as circular and have urged courts to adopt something else. This essay explains what the circularity worry really amounts to: the worry is about courts using improperly reduced expectations of privacy as a reason to withhold Fourth Amendment protection. This worry is much broader than most commentators have seen, and this broader framing allows one to deflect recent concerns that Katz circularity (more narrowly construed) is a myth. With the 'circularity' worry properly understood, the essay offers a way to deal with it: courts could simply drop Step One of Katz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belief in astrology remains strong even today, and one of the explanations why some people endorse paranormal explanations is the individual differences in analytical thinking. Therefore, the main aim of this paper was to determine the effects of priming an analytical or intuitive thinking style on the credulity of participants. In two experiments (N = 965), analytic thinking was induced and the source of fake profile (astrological reading vs. psychological testing) was manipulated and participants’ prior paranormal beliefs, anomalous explanation, cognitive reflection, and depression were measured. Although analytic thinking was proved to be hard to induce experimentally, the results showed that analytic thinking predicts credulity and belief in the paranormal was linked with experiencing more anomalous experiences and more paranormal explanations. The more people were able to think analytically, the less credulous they were as reflected in the lower acceptance of fake profile as accurate.

Copyright of Alustath is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Belief in astrology remains strong even today, and one of the explanations why some people endorse paranormal explanations is the individual differences in analytical thinking. Therefore, the main aim of this paper was to determine the effects of priming an analytical or intuitive thinking style on the credulity of participants. In two experiments (N = 965), analytic thinking was induced and the source of fake profile (astrological reading vs. psychological testing) was manipulated and participants' prior paranormal beliefs, anomalous explanation, cognitive reflection, and depression were measured. Although analytic thinking was proved to be hard to induce experimentally, the results showed that analytic thinking predicts credulity and belief in the paranormal was linked with experiencing more anomalous experiences and more paranormal explanations. The more people were able to think analytically, the less credulous they were as reflected in the lower acceptance of fake profile as accurate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We find that analysts' forecast errors are predicted by past accounting accruals (adjustments to cash flows to obtain reported earnings) among both equity issuers and nonissuers. Analysts are more optimistic for the subsequent four years for issuers reporting higher issue-year accruals. The predictive power is greater for discretionary accruals than nondiscretionary accruals and is independent of the presence of an underwriting affiliation. Predicted forecast errors from accruals significantly explain the long-term underperformance of new issuers. The predictability of forecast errors among nonissuers suggests that analysts' credulity about accruals management more generally contributes to market inefficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Estudos Literários is the property of Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Broadcaster and journalist. FRCP (hon). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios Filosóficos is the property of Estudios Filosoficos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We study ultimatum and dictator environments with one-way, unenforceable pre-play communication from the proposer to the recipient, semantically framed as a promise. After observing this promise regarding how much the proposer will offer if selected, in our treatment conditions, recipients choose whether or not to select a particular proposer. We find that offers can increase in the ultimatum game both with non-competitive selection with a single potential proposer, and more so with competition, where the recipient chooses one of two potential proposers, as compared to the no selection baseline. Furthermore, the offer is rejected with higher probability if the promisemade by the selected proposer is higher than the eventual offer. Our dictator environment does not give the power to reject offers, thus selection power carries no benefits in the dictator game. Finally, independent of the game institution or proposer selection mechanism, promises provide credible signals for offers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characters of Caragiale are always found in action, in an oral action. In his short stories the author has studied the tension, the madness of origin paroxysmal pathological cases interpreted by the heroes. Its area is clean psychologically revealing the naturalistic mentality of the writer. The lack of humanity result to feelings of horror and psychological terror. Caragiale is entitled to be a narrator of noble race. Caragiale's prose meet in different aspects the first person of the narrative. The narrator usually remains in the shadows, but it is not detached from the author, even when it is pronounced humorous credulity. The modesty, the humility and ingenuity are underlined by the author and narrator alternates with malice directly quizzically. In his novels the narrator's voice is heard reflecting and lives in concrete at the level of sensation and practices. The narrator is driven by impulses, no inhibitions and no drafts a plan. The character is characterized so much that we can no longer say it is a "character" as in classicism or "type" like in realism, but rather as a "marionette" in the modern theater of the absurd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functions of cultural beliefs are often opaque to those who hold them. Accordingly, to benefit from cultural evolution’s ability to solve complex adaptive problems, learners must be credulous. However, credulity entails costs, including susceptibility to exploitation, and effort wasted due to false beliefs. One determinant of the optimal level of credulity is the ratio between the costs of two types of errors: erroneous incredulity (failing to believe information that is true) and erroneous credulity (believing information that is false). This ratio can be expected to be asymmetric when information concerns hazards, as the costs of erroneous incredulity will, on average, exceed the costs of erroneous credulity; no equivalent asymmetry characterizes information concerning benefits. Natural selection can therefore be expected to have crafted learners’ minds so as to be more credulous toward information concerning hazards. This negatively-biased credulity extends general negativity bias, the adaptive tendency for negative events to be more salient than positive events. Together, these biases constitute attractors that should shape cultural evolution via the aggregated effects of learners’ differential retention and transmission of information. In two studies in the U.S., we demonstrate the existence of negatively-biased credulity, and show that it is most pronounced in those who believe the world to be dangerous, individuals who may constitute important nodes in cultural transmission networks. We then document the predicted imbalance in cultural content using a sample of urban legends collected from the Internet and a sample of supernatural beliefs obtained from ethnographies of a representative collection of the world’s cultures, showing that beliefs about hazards predominate in both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have proposed the False Tagging Theory as a neurobiological model of belief and doubt processes. The theory posits that the prefrontal cortex is critical for normative doubt toward properly comprehended ideas or cognitions. Such doubt is important for advantageous decisions, for example in the financial and consumer purchasing realms. Here, using a neuropsychological approach, we put the False Tagging Theory to an empirical test, hypothesizing that focal damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex would cause a doubt deficit that would result in higher credulity and purchase intention for consumer products featured in misleading advertisements. We presented 8 consumer ads to 18 patients with focal brain damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, 21 patients with focal brain damage outside the prefrontal cortex, and 10 demographically similar healthy comparison participants. Patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage were (1) more credulous to misleading ads; and (2) showed the highest intention to purchase the products in the misleading advertisements, relative to patients with brain damage outside the prefrontal cortex and healthy comparison participants. The pattern of findings was obtained even for ads in which the misleading bent was corrected by a disclaimer. The evidence is consistent with our proposal that damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex disrupts a false tagging mechanism which normally produces doubt and skepticism for cognitive representations. We suggest that the disruption increases credulity for misleading information, even when the misleading information is corrected for by a disclaimer. This mechanism could help explain poor financial decision-making when persons with ventromedial prefrontal dysfunction (e.g., caused by neurological injury or aging) are exposed to persuasive information.

This article analyses contract cancellation and product return policies in markets in which sellers advise customers about the suitability of their offering. When customers are fully rational, it is optimal for sellers to offer the right to cancel or return on favourable terms. A generous return policy makes the seller's “cheap talk” at the point of sale credible. This observation provides a possible explanation for the excess refund puzzle and also has implications for the management of customer reviews. When customers are credulous, instead, sellers have an incentive to set unfavourable terms to exploit the inflated beliefs they induce in their customers. The imposition of a minimum statutory standard improves welfare and consumer surplus when customers are credulous. In contrast, competition policy reduces contractual inefficiencies with rational customers, but it is not effective with credulous customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have proposed the FalseTaggingTheory (FTT) as a neurobiological model of belief and doubt processes.The theory posits that the prefrontal cortex is critical for normative doubt toward properly comprehended ideas or cognitions. Such doubt is important for advanta-geous decisions, for example in the financial and consumer purchasing realms. Here, using a neuropsychological approach,we put the FTT to an empirical test, hypothesizing that focal damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) would cause a "doubt deficit" that would result in higher credulity and purchase intention for consumer products featured in misleading advertisements.We presented 8 consumer ads to 18 patients with focal brain damage to the vmPFC, 21 patients with focal brain damage outside the prefrontal cor-tex, and 10 demographically similar healthy comparison participants. Patients with vmPFC damage were (1) more credulous to misleading ads; and (2) showed the highest inten-tion to purchase the products in the misleading advertisements, relative to patients with brain damage outside the prefrontal cortex and healthy comparison participants. The pat-tern of findings was obtained even for ads in which the misleading bent was "corrected" by a disclaimer. The evidence is consistent with our proposal that damage to the vmPFC disrupts a "false tagging mechanism" which normally produces doubt and skepticism for cognitive representations.We suggest that the disruption increases credulity for mislead-ing information, even when the misleading information is corrected for by a disclaimer.This mechanism could help explain poor financial decision-making when persons with ventro-medial prefrontal dysfunction (e.g., caused by neurological injury or aging) are exposed to persuasive information [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on approaches to historical evidence in the 16th century. Particular focus is given to issues of integrity and authenticity in classical sources. According to the author, historians attempted empirical methods of establishing facts from a variety of historical sources, regardless of an individual source's truthfulness. It is suggested that these methods were applied to scientific study by philosopher Francis Bacon. Topics discussed include humanism, credulity, and rhetoric.

Young children readily act on information from adults, setting aside their own prior convictions and even continuing to trust informants who make claims that are manifestly false. Such credulity is consistent with a long-standing philosophical and scientific conception of young children as prone to indiscriminate trust. Against this conception, we argue that children trust some informants more than others. In particular, they use two major heuristics. First, they keep track of the history of potential informants. Faced with conflicting claims, they endorse claims made by someone who has provided reliable care or reliable information in the past. Second, they monitor the cultural standing of potential informants. Faced with conflicting claims, children endorse claims made by someone who belongs to a consensus and whose behaviour abides by, rather than deviating from, the norms of their group. The first heuristic is likely to promote receptivity to information offered by familiar caregivers, whereas the second heuristic is likely to promote a broader receptivity to informants from the same culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How should you update your (degrees of ) belief about a proposition when you find out that someone else — as reliable as you are in these matters — disagrees with you about its truth value? There are now several different answers to this question — the question of ‘peer disagreement’ — in the literature, but none, I think, is plausible. Even more importantly, none of the answers in the literature places the peer-disagreement debate in its natural place among the most general traditional concerns of normative epistemology. In this paper I try to do better. I start by emphasizing how we cannot and should not treat ourselves as ‘truthometers’ — merely devices with a certain probability of tracking the truth. I argue that the truthometer view is the main motivation for the Equal Weight View in the context of peer disagreement. With this fact in mind, the discussion of peer disagreement becomes more complicated, sensitive to the justification of the relevant background degrees of belief (including the conditional ones), and to some of the most general points that arise in the context of discussions of scepticism. I argue that thus understood, peer disagreement is less special as an epistemic phenomenon than may be thought, and so that there is very little by way of positive theory that we can give about peer disagreement in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract  Many assume that we can be responsible only what is voluntary. This leads to puzzlement about our responsibility for our beliefs, since beliefs seem not to be voluntary. I argue against the initial assumption, presenting an account of responsibility and of voluntariness according to which, not only is voluntariness not required for responsibility, but the feature which renders an attitude a fundamental object of responsibility (that the attitude embodies one’s take on the world and one’s place in it) also guarantees that it could not be voluntary. It turns out, then, that, for failing to be voluntary, beliefs are a central example of the sort of thing for which we are most fundamentally responsible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often said that our moral experience, broadly construed to include our ways of thinking and talking about morality, has a certain objective-seeming character to it, and that this supports a presumption in favor of objectivist theories (according to which morality is a realm of facts or truths) and against anti-objectivist theories like Mackie’s error theory (according to which it is not). In this paper, I argue that our experience of morality does not support objectivist moral theories in this way. I begin by arguing that our moral experience does not have the uniformly objective-seeming character it is typically claimed to have. I go on to argue that even if moral experience were to presuppose or display morality as a realm of fact, we would still need a reason for taking that to support theories according to which it is such a realm. I consider what I take to be the four most promising ways of attempting to supply such a reason: (A) inference to the best explanation, (B) epistemic conservatism, (C) the Principle of Credulity, and (D) the method of wide reflective equilibrium. In each case, I argue, the strategy in question does not support a presumption in favor of objectivist moral theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]