Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

[MAGA thought process: We must punish evil China for sending this horrible virus that is just the common cold and we don’t need masks but Trump was a hero for wearing one that one time and God bles...

The endorsement of epistemically suspect (i.e., paranormal, conspiracy, and pseudoscientific) beliefs is widespread and has negative consequences. Therefore, it is important to understand the reasoning processes – such as lower analytic thinking and susceptibility to cognitive biases – that might lead to the adoption of such beliefs. In two studies, I constructed and tested a novel questionnaire on epistemically suspect beliefs (Study 1, N = 263), and used it to examine probabilistic reasoning biases and belief bias in syllogistic reasoning as (...) predictors of the endorsement of those beliefs, while accounting for analytic thinking and worldview variables (Study 2, N = 397). Probabilistic reasoning biases, analytic thinking, religious faith, and political liberalism consistently predicted various epistemically suspect beliefs, whereas the effect of syllogistic belief bias was largely restricted to pseudoscientific beliefs. Further research will be needed to examine the role the biased evaluation of evidence plays in the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs. (shrink)

The epistemic attitudes of scientists, such as epistemic tolerance and authoritarianism, play important roles in the discourse about rivaling theories. Epistemic tolerance stands for the mental attitude of an epistemic agent, e.g., a scientist, who is open to opposing views, while epistemic authoritarianism represents the tendency to uncritically accept views of authorities. Another relevant epistemic factor when it comes to the epistemic decisions of scientists is the skepticism towards the scientific method. However, the question is whether these epistemic attitudes are (...) influenced by their sociopolitical counterparts, such as the researcher’s degree of conservatism. To empirically investigate the interplay between epistemic and sociopolitical attitudes of scientists, we conducted a survey with researchers (N = 655) across different disciplines. We propose scales for measuring epistemic tolerance and epistemic authoritarianism, as well as a scale for detecting the participants' readiness to question the scientific method. Furthermore, we investigate the relationship between epistemic tolerance and epistemic authoritarianism on the one hand, and career stage and sociopolitical views on the other hand. Interestingly, our study found only small correlations between the participants' degree of conservatism and their epistemic attitudes. This suggests that political views, against common argumentation, actually do not play an important role in one’s scientific decisions. Moreover, social scientists scored higher on the epistemic tolerance and lower on the epistemic authoritarianism scale than natural scientists. Finally, the results indicate that natural scientists question the scientific method less than social scientists. (shrink)

Vice epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature, identity, and epistemological significance of intellectual vices. Such vices include gullibility, dogmatism, prejudice, closed-mindedness, and negligence. These are intellectual character vices, that is, intellectual vices that are also character traits. I ask how the notion of an intellectual character vice should be understood, whether such vices exist, and how they might be epistemologically significant. The proposal is that intellectual character vices are intellectual character traits that impede effective and responsible inquiry. I (...) argue that situationist critiques of virtue epistemology pose no significant threat to this proposal. Studies by social psychologists of belief in conspiracy theories suggest that it is sometimes appropriate to explain questionable beliefs by reference to intellectual character vices. Neither ‘regulative’ nor ‘analytic’ epistemology has any good reason to question the epistemological significance of such vices. (shrink)

In the literature on conspiracism, fundamentalism, and extremism, we find so-called vice explanations for the extreme behavior and extreme beliefs that they involve. These are explanations in terms of people’s character traits, like arrogance, vengefulness, closed-mindedness, and dogmatism. However, such vice explanations face the so-called situationist challenge, which argues based on various experiments that either there are no vices or that they are not robust. Behavior and belief, so is the idea, are much better explained by appeal to numerous situational (...) factors, like one’s mood or how orderly one’s environment is. This paper explores the situationist challenge to vice explanations for conspiracism, fundamentalism, and extremism in more detail by assessing the empirical evidence, analyzing the argumentation based on it, and drawing conclusions for where this leaves vice explanations. The main conclusion is that vice explanations for such extreme behavior and extreme beliefs need to be fine-tuned on various points, but that there is no reason to think that they have been discredited by empirical evidence. Moreover, the situationist challenge shows that sensitivity is needed for distinguishing when vice explanations for conspiracism, fundamentalism, and extremism are appropriate, when appeal to situational factors is more fitting, and when the two can be combined. (shrink)

There has never been a time in history that we have been bombarded with so much information in the media and on the internet, especially information that may inhibit thoughtful reflection. In conte...

Conspiracy theories and rumors, as forms manifesting “social thought”, share processes and functions. The few studies dealing specifically with the question of belief in rumors questioned the link between adhesion and transmission. The aim here will be to question the link between « knowledge », « adhesion » and « transmission » in conspiracy theories and rumors through two empirical studies. Can we know and transmit without adhering to? Can one know and adhere to without transmitting? Can we adhere to (...) and transmit without actually « knowing »? (shrink)

Narrative persuasion, i.e. the impact of narratives on beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, and the mechanisms underpinning endorsement of conspiracy theories have both drawn substantial attention from social scientists. Yet, to date these two fields have evolved separately, and to our knowledge no study has empirically examined the impact of conspiracy narratives on real-world conspiracy beliefs. In a first study, we exposed a group of participants (n = 37) to an X-Files episode before asking them to fill in a questionnaire related (...) to their narrative experience and conspiracy beliefs. A control group (n = 41) had to answer the conspiracy beliefs items before watching the episode. Based on past findings of both the aforementioned lines of research, we hypothesized that the experimental group would show greater endorsement of conspiracy beliefs, an effect expected to be mediated by identification to the episodes’ characters. We furthermore hypothesized that identification would be associated with cognitive elaboration of the narrative information. The first two hypotheses were disproved since no narrative persuasion effect was observed. In a second study, we sought to replicate these results in a larger sample (n = 166). No persuasive effect was found in the new data and a bayesian meta-analysis of the two studies strongly supports the absence of a positive effect of exposure to narrative material on endorsement of conspiracy theories. In both studies, a significant relation between conspiracy mentality and enjoyment was observed. In the second study, this relation was fully mediated by two dimensions of perceived realism, i.e., plausibility and narrative consistency. We discuss our results, based on theoretical models of narrative persuasion and compare our studies with previous narrative persuasion studies. Implications of these results for future research are also discussed. (shrink)

This paper assessed whether belief in conspiracy theories was associated with a particularly cognitive style (worldview). The sample comprised 223 volunteers recruited via convenience sampling and included undergraduates, postgraduates, university employees and alumni. Respondents completed measures assessing a range of cognitive-perceptual factors (schizotypy, delusional ideation and hallucination proneness) and conspiratorial beliefs (general attitudes towards conspiracist thinking and endorsement of individual conspiracies). Positive symptoms of schizotypy, particularly the cognitive-perceptual factor, correlated positively with conspiracist beliefs. The best predictor of belief in conspiracies (...) was delusional ideation. Consistent with the notion of a coherent conspiratorial mindset, scores across conspiracy measures correlated strongly. Whilst findings supported the view that belief in conspiracies, within the sub-clinical population, was associated with a delusional thinking style, cognitive-perceptual factors in combination accounted for only 32% of the variance. (shrink)

One of the appeals of conspiracy theories in times of crises is that they provide someone to blame for what has happened. Thereby, they increase distrust, negative feelings, and hostility toward implicated actors, whether those are powerful social outgroups or one’s own government representatives. Two studies reported here examine associations of COVID-19 conspiracy theories with prejudice, support for violence, and other and negative social outcomes. In Study 1, the endorsement of the more specific conspiracy theories about the alleged role of (...) China was associated with more prejudiced views of Chinese and Italian people. In Study 2, lowered trust in government regulations and increased hostility associated with the COVID-19 and generic conspiracy beliefs were correlated with justification of and willingness to engage in non-compliance with regulations, violent attacks on 5G masts, and anti-government protests. Across both of the studies, higher exposure to news about COVID-19 was associated with lower endorsement of conspiracy theories, but also with increased feelings of anxiety and lack of control, which in turn were correlated with higher COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs endorsement. We highlight the potential social problems which are associated with the wide-spread endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. (shrink)

In the social sciences, research on conspiracy theories is accumulating fast. To contribute to this research, here I introduce a computational model about the psychological processes underlying support for conspiracy theories. The proposal is that endorsement of these theories depends on three factors: prior beliefs, novel evidence, and expected consequences. Thanks to the latter, a conspiracy hypothesis might be selected because it is the costliest to reject even if it is not the best supported by evidence and by prior beliefs (...) (i.e., even if it is not the most accurate). In this way, the model implies a key role for motivated reasoning. By examining the social conditions that favour the success of conspiracy theories, the paper embeds the model, whose focus is primarily psychological, within the broader social context, and applies this analysis to probe the role of conspiracy theories within contemporary Western societies. Altogether, the paper argues that a computational outlook can contribute to elucidate the socio-psychological dynamics underlying the attractiveness of conspiracy theories. (shrink)

A consistent finding reported in the literature is that epistemically suspect beliefs are less frequently endorsed by individuals with a greater tendency to think analytically. However, these results have been observed predominantly in Western participants. In the present work, we explore various individual differences known to predict epistemically suspect beliefs across both Western and Eastern cultures. Across four studies with Japanese and Western individuals, we find that the association between thinking style and beliefs varied as a function of culture. Specifically, (...) while Westerners who scored higher on measures of Type-2 analytic thinking tended to endorse epistemically suspect beliefs less, this association was not observed in Japanese samples, suggesting that the often-observed negative association between analytic thinking and epistemically suspect beliefs may be exclusive to Western individuals. Additionally, we demonstrate that a tendency to think holistically is positively associated with the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs within both samples. Overall, we discuss how various individual differences predict the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs across cultures. (shrink)

The recent intense interest in conspiratorial thinking is fuelled by the perception that belief in conspiracies is highly irrational. However, there have been few studies that have examined the associations of conspiracy belief with a comprehensive battery of rational thinking tasks that tap both epistemic and instrumental rationality. The Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking (CART) provides an opportunity to do just that because one of the subtests on the CART assesses the tendency to believe false conspiracies. That subtest is in (...) the part of the CART that measures the presence of contaminated mindware—stored declarative knowledge that embodies poorly justified beliefs. Converging analyses (N = 747) using the 18 subtests and four thinking dispositions measured on the CART indicated that three variables were key predictors of conspiratorial thinking: superstitious thinking, actively open-minded thinking, and probabilistic reasoning. Theoretical consideration of these best predictors, and of the variables that predict the endorsement of true conspiracies, led us to rethink the classification of conspiracy belief as contaminated mindware and move instead towards a conception of conspiratorial thinking as a cognitive style. (shrink)