i just found the best research article and i want to share with you all:
"The Complex Relation Between Receptivity to Pseudo-Profound Bullshit and Political Ideology"
that title in simple terms: are liberals or conservatives more susceptible to fake-deep bullshit?
the critical results is that people whose morality is based more heavily on loyalty to one's groups, deference to authorities, and moral purity are waaaay more susceptible to this kind of fake-deep bullshit.
that effect was so strong it wiped out a lot of other results in their data. for example, endorsing tradition/resisting change and being socially conservative were strongly associated with being more susceptible to bullshit, but those factors stopped predicting susceptibility once these moral foundations were accounted for.
arguably, the reason this happens is because "social conservatism" is almost shorthand for holding strong loyalty/authority/purity morals. like, a long series of research papers have found that political (especially social) conservatism is predicted by endorsing loyalty/authority/purity morals.
Not to make everything about fandom, but I've been confident for a long-ass time that fanpol antis largely base their morality on these moral foundations (loyalty/authority/purity). antis are loyal to the group consensus and get harshly rejected and excluded by other antis when they have a dissenting opinion (loyalty); they tend to be obsessed with canon validation and harass creators on social media, not to mention their deference to cult leader-like big name fans (deference to authority); and of course it's in the name: fandom purity culture.
(if you want a detailed write-up on that feel free to ask, i have thoughts)
Meaning, ultimately, i spent like 2.5 hours reading this paper and writing this post just so could write the research-supported assertion that:
Antis are particularly susceptible to bullshit
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additional description of the paper's other results under the cut, unrelated to fandom, for anyone who wants to know more of the political results but can't access the paper
























