Research on conspiracy theories has proliferated since 2016, in part due to the US election of President Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly threatening environmental conditions. In the rush to publication given these concerning social consequences, researchers have increasingly treated as definitive a 2016 paper by Michael Wood (Political Psychology, 37(5), 695–705, 2016) that concludes that the phrase “conspiracy theory” has no negative effect upon people’s willingness to endorse a claim. We revisit Wood’s findings and its (re)uptake in the recent literature. Is the label “conspiracy theory” a pejorative? If so, does it sway or affect people’s belief in specific claims of conspiracy (i.e. particular conspiracy theories), or is the effect one that concerns claims of conspiracy more generally (i.e. all conspiracy theories)? Through an examination of the conceptual and methodological scope of Wood’s work and the results of our similar quasi-experimental design, we argue that it is premature to suggest the label “conspiracy theory” has no impact on the believability of a claim, or that it has no rhetorical power.

自 2016 年以来，阴谋论研究激增，部分原因是美国特朗普总统当选、COVID-19 大流行以及日益威胁的环境条件。考虑到这些有关社会后果的问题，研究人员急于发表文章，越来越多地将迈克尔·伍德 (Michael Wood) 2016 年发表的一篇论文视为权威论文（《政治心理学》，37(5), 695–705, 2016），该论文得出的结论是，“阴谋论”一词没有负面影响。影响人们认可某项主张的意愿。我们重新审视伍德的发现及其在最近文献中的（重新）吸收。 “阴谋论”这个标签是贬义词吗？如果是这样，它是否会动摇或影响人们对特定阴谋论（即特定阴谋论）的信念，还是影响更普遍的阴谋论（即所有阴谋论）？通过对伍德工作的概念和方法论范围以及我们类似的准实验设计的结果的审查，我们认为，现在认为“阴谋论”标签对主张的可信度没有影响，或者它对主张的可信度没有影响还为时过早。没有修辞力量。