Using the label ‘conspiracy theory’ is widely perceived to be a way of discrediting wild ideas and unsubstantiated claims. However, prior research suggests that labelling statements as conspiracy theories does not reduce people's belief in them. In four studies, we probed this effect further, and tested the alternative hypothesis that the label ‘conspiracy theory’ is a consequence rather than a cause of (dis)belief in conspiracy-related statements. Replicating prior research, Study 1 (N = 170) yielded no evidence that the label ‘conspiracy theory’ affects belief in statements. In Study 2 (N = 199), we discovered that the less people believed in statements, the more they favoured labelling them as ‘conspiracy theories’. In Studies 3 and 4 (Ns = 150 and 151), we manipulated the relative believability of statements and found that participants preferred the label ‘conspiracy theory’ for relatively less believable versus more believable statements. The current research therefore supports the hypothesis that prior (dis)agreement with a statement affects the use of the label ‘conspiracy theory’ more than the other way around.

中文翻译：

---

“阴谋论”这个标签是不相信另类叙述的原因还是结果？

使用“阴谋论”这个标签被广泛认为是一种诋毁疯狂想法和未经证实的主张的方式。然而，先前的研究表明，将声明标记为阴谋论并不会降低人们对它们的信任。在四项研究中，我们进一步探讨了这种影响，并检验了另一种假设，即“阴谋论”标签是对阴谋相关陈述的（不）相信的结果而不是原因。复制先前的研究，研究 1 ( N  = 170) 没有证据表明“阴谋论”标签会影响对陈述的信念。在研究 2 ( N  = 199) 中，我们发现人们越不相信陈述，他们就越倾向于将其标记为“阴谋论”。在研究 3 和 4 ( Ns = 150 和 151），我们操纵了陈述的相对可信度，发现参与者更喜欢标签“阴谋论”，因为相对不太可信而不是更可信的陈述。因此，目前的研究支持这样一种假设，即事先（不）同意一项声明对使用“阴谋论”标签的影响大于相反。