The Creativity of Conspiracy Theories

The negative impact of misinformation and vaccine conspiracy on COVID-19 vaccine uptake and attitudes among the general public in Iraq

Background

Vaccine hesitancy is a major barrier to infectious disease control. Previous studies showed high rates of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the Middle East. The current study aimed to investigate the attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination and COVID-19 vaccine uptake among adult population in Iraq.

Methods

This self-administered survey-based study was conducted in August-September 2022. The survey instrument assessed participants' demographics, attitudes to COVID-19 vaccination, beliefs in COVID-19 misinformation, vaccine conspiracy beliefs, and sources of information regarding the vaccine.

Results

The study sample comprised a total of 2544 individuals, with the majority reporting the uptake of at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccination (n = 2226, 87.5 %). Positive attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination were expressed by the majority of participants (n = 1966, 77.3 %), while neutral and negative attitudes were expressed by 345 (13.6 %) and 233 (9.2 %) participants, respectively. Factors associated with positive attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination in multivariate analysis included disbelief in COVID-19 misinformation and disagreement with vaccine conspiracies. Higher COVID-19 vaccine uptake was significantly associated with previous history of COVID-19 infection, higher income, residence outside the Capital, disbelief in COVID-19 misinformation, disagreement with vaccine conspiracies, and reliance on reputable information sources.

Conclusion

COVID-19 vaccine coverage was high among the participants, with a majority having positive attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination. Disbelief in COVID-19 misinformation and disagreement with vaccine conspiracies were correlated with positive vaccine attitudes and higher vaccine uptake. These insights can inform targeted interventions to enhance vaccination campaigns.

Storytelling, Creativity and Writing as a Tool for Building Sophisticated Social Skills

INTRO

The aim of the work is to prove the effectiveness of the recommendations developed by the authors for introducing the basics of storytelling into the educational process in the context of the development of sophisticated social skills.

METHODS

A survey method was used to determine students' knowledge of storytelling. Previously 52% of students used the storytelling techniques only partly in classes, and 30% of students are not familiar with the storytelling features and have not previously used them.

RESULTS

The survey revealed students' insufficient knowledge about storytelling. Comparison of students' skills before and after the experiment showed that the developed recommendations have an impact on learning effectiveness. Such findings are attributed to the fact that after the experiment 89% of students had high scores (90-98 points), while before the experiment only 15% of students possessed such skills, with their scores ranging from 82 to 90 points.

CONCLUSION

Research findings may be used to develop creative texts that, among other things, drive sophisticated social skills. Practical significance. The research findings may be used by future and present scientific journalists, television journalists and presenters seeking to improve their professional and creative skills which would help them to stay competitive in the media industry.

Conspiracy Narratives as a Type of Social Myth

It has long been recognized that conspiracy narratives may be seen as a special kind of myth. In most cases, however, this is taken as a sign of their irrational and unsubstantiated nature. I argue that mythical modes of reasoning are actually far more pervasive in modern political and cultural discourse than we commonly admit and that the difference between mainstream discourse and conspiracy narratives is not one between "rational" and "mythical" thought but rather one between different types of mythical thinking. The specific nature of conspiracy myths is best understood in relation to two other types of social myths: political myths and fictional myths. Conspiracy myths are a hybrid of these two genres: like fictional myths, they make use of imaginative elements, but like political myths, they are understood as having a relatively straightforward relation to reality and not just a metaphorical one. They are essentially anti-systemic, and their chief ethos is that of distrust. Nevertheless, the degree to which they reject the system varies, and it is thus useful to distinguish between weaker and stronger conspiracy myths. While the latter reject the system altogether and are incompatible with political myths, the former are capable of co-operating with them.

The evil within: The AMORAL model of dark creativity

The dark side of creativity entails using original thought to meet a selfish, negative, or evil goal, with or without the deliberate intent to harm others. Recent empirical advances have studied the behavioral correlates of such creativity, including associations with aggression, deception, and subclinical psychopathy. The time, therefore, seems apt to propose a theoretical framework for dark creativity’s development and manifestation. This article outlines the AMORAL model of dark creativity, which traces a creative action from its Antecedents to Mechanisms and Operants to its Realization, and to the subsequent Aftereffects and Legacy of the act. We use both real-life and simulated examples to illustrate the application of the theory across multiple domains, from law enforcement to interpersonal relationships. Our goal is to help guide future scholarship and measurement.