> Our survey measured it on a scale of how much people agreed with sentences including “Following coronavirus prevention guidelines means you have backed down” and “Continuous coronavirus coverage in the media is a sign we are losing.” Our interpretation is that people who responded positively to these statements would feel they “win” by endorsing misinformation – doing so can show “the enemy” that it will not gain any ground over people’s views.
The actual study is paywalled and not present on Sci-Hub, but I wonder what were all the questions, whether they tried it the other way around (with true claims, perhaps on some other topic), how different the answers were with those. I would guess it is implied, to support such an interpretation, but it is not stated explicitly, and from what is written, it sounds like people who believed in conspiracy theories (or were otherwise skeptical of mainstream views) were in fact unhappy to go along with prevention measures and annoyed by the mainstream coverage, which is not surprising at all.
The actual study is paywalled and not present on Sci-Hub, but I wonder what were all the questions, whether they tried it the other way around (with true claims, perhaps on some other topic), how different the answers were with those. I would guess it is implied, to support such an interpretation, but it is not stated explicitly, and from what is written, it sounds like people who believed in conspiracy theories (or were otherwise skeptical of mainstream views) were in fact unhappy to go along with prevention measures and annoyed by the mainstream coverage, which is not surprising at all.