Lecture 5&6

Question 1

Whats the definition of a conspiracy theory:

Answer 1

According to Douglas (2019), conspiracy theories are attempts to explain the ultimate causes of significant social and political events and circumstances with claims of secret plots by two or more powerful actors.

Science studies conspiracy theories from an epistemically agnostic perspective.

Question 2

Lecture goals

Answer 2

Goals:

Understanding what a conspiracy theory is

Explain how conspiracy theories affect one’s perspective of the world

Illustrate the potential (yet not automatic) dangerous actions that conspiracy believers can take

Question 3

The mindset of a conspiracy theorist

Answer 3

The best way to predict if somebody believes in a specific conspiracy theory is the fact that this person already believes in another conspiracy (Goertzel, 1994).

Even

Up to an insane level… (Wood et al., 2012):

[
The more people believe that Bin Laden was dead when the raid happened in his compound, the more they believe that he is still alive.

Diana was killed by Al Fayed’s business enemies…but she faked her own death How can we explain this?

Difference between probably exclusive beliefs and necessarily exclusive beliefs (Lukić et al., 2019)

Distilling crucial information

Evoking possible scenarios

]

Question 4

The mindset of a conspiracy theorist

2 types of beliefs ,

Answer 4

2 types of beliefs ,

Probably exclusive beliefs or necessarily exclusive beliefs

There is a positive correlation between Probably exclusive beliefs but not between necessarily exclusive beliefs,

Question 5

Why do we actually believe in conspiracy theories?

Well there are multiple sources included when trying to find an answer for this what are they

Answer 5

• Psychopathological
• Cognitive
• Social
• Motivational

Question 6

Psychopathological reasoning as to why we belive in conspiracy thories :

Answer 6

Are conspiracy believers crazy?
No.
But are there psychopathological explanations that are behind the way believers believe? Yes

Cichocka and colleagues (2016) have for instance shown that

self-esteem,
individual narcissism,
and paranoid thinking

all correlated with the belief in conspiracy theories.

De Coninck and colleagues (2024) also confirmed that

feelings of threats and anxiety fostered the

belief in conspiracy theories

Question 7

COGNITIVE reasoning as to why we belive in conspiracy thories :

Answer 7

There are, again, multiple cognitive reasons that explain why we believe in conspiracy theories.

For instance, illusory pattern recognition (Hartmann & Müller, 2023).

How would conspiracy believers recognize things when there is nothing

• Higher conspiracy believers saw more things when there were none
• Beliefs in irrational events tend to make people see things when there are none
• When there is a pattern, both recognize it to the same way, but when there is none, conspiracy
  believers see more than others

Question 8

The Cognitive Reflection Test, designed to measure analytical thinking and intuitive thinking.

Answer 8

Intuitive thinking is often related to conspiracy theory believing. A form of intuitive thinking: magical thinking (i.e., bad dju dju) It is related to superstition as well. But can we train people to think in a more analytical fashion?

Question 9

Training people to think less intuitively and more analytically

Answer 9

There is a positive effect of training in thinking less intuitively, in slowing down the thinking

process.

Also, according to van Prooijen (2016),

education – which is the best form of training – is one of the

best predictors of believing in conspiracy theories.

Education protects against

Beliefs in simple solution to major problems
The feeling of powerlessness
The impression of being low class in society

Question 10

SOCIAL reasoning as to why we belive in conspiracy thories :

Answer 10

• Social identity theory:
  In-group vs. out-group
• National narcissism:

Grandiose image of the nation

Requires external validation

Defensive about identity threats

• Advantages: group behaviour and protection against threats (Sternisko et al., 2007)

Question 11

How did Gorska et al. (2023) actually showed that different forms of in-group identity affect conspiracy beliefs

Answer 11

National narcissism

National identification

COVID-related conspiracy theories

• Environmental reason
• Medical reason
• American as a source for CT
• China as a source for CT

Question 12

MOTIVATION reasoning as to why we belive in conspiracy thories :

Answer 12

Very often, our minds required specific needs to work properly. For instance, the need for closure.

CLOSURE :

Does the need for (cognitive) closure affect one’s proneness in believing in conspiracy theories?

According to Marchlewska et al. (2017), high levels of cognitive closure facilitates believing in

conspiracy theories, but only for large, major events that do not have an official explanation.

When an explanation is given, the need for closure diminishes, and lowers the level in believing in a conspiracy (uncertainty reduction).

UNIQUENESS:

Imhoff and Lamberty (2017) have tested this in a very elegant way. They measured the extent to which people were feeling the necessity to be unique, and tested to what extent they believe in conspiracy theories.

The beautiful part of the study? The conspiracy theories were either described as believed by many people or a minority of people.

Need for uniqueness ->Minority CT->Don’t be a sheep.

Question 13

ACTIONS :

Answer 13

Conspiracy beliefs can lead people to act. The Capitole Riot is an extreme example of this, but believing in conspiracies also can lead people to act in specific ways.

Question 14

EPISTEMIC DISTRUST :

Answer 14

EPISTEMIC DISTRUST:
Epistemic distrust refers to a lack of trust in accepted knowledge and experts.

Guillon (2018): Claims that extreme critical thinking and belief in conspiracies both stem from epistemic individualism, which involves relying on oneself and rejecting expert opinions.

Tomas et al. (2022): Investigated if epistemic individualism is linked to a conspiracy mindset.
Found that rejecting expertise (expertise defiance) is related to conspiracy beliefs, more so than self-reliance.
Critical thinking by itself does not lead to conspiracy beliefs.

However, they found a chain of influence:

Critical thinking dispositions lead to self-reliance.
Self-reliance leads to rejecting expertise.
Rejecting expertise leads to believing in conspiracies.

Critical Thinking Dispositions -> Self-Reliance -> Expertise Defiance -> Conspiracy Believing.

Question 15

UNKNOWN SELF

Answer 15

Epistemic individualism is a mindset where individuals rely heavily on their own knowledge and judgment rather than trusting external sources of expertise.

Tomas et al. (2022) tested whether epistemic individualism was related to conspiracy mindset.

But the results from Tomas et al. (2022) are self-reported. What about their actions? Do conspiracy believers actually act differently in processing information compared to non-believers?

Conspiracy believers tend to have an overestimation of their own capacities in terms of critical thinking and information processing
-> self-actual gap
(Altay et al., 2023).

In other words, conspiracy believers suppose that they can handle information better than others, without the help of any advisor. But they actually seem to do everyone: not take the advice into consideration

Question 16

INTERNET

Answer 16

The Internet has also affected our way of using and producing information.nMass media is seen as a “power block” (influences the ways people think) The Internet is seen as democratic (people can speak freely and find information)

• No safeguard to what info is true/false, and everything can be spread and shared
• Huge quantity of information à less analytical processing a more intuitive processing

Conspiracy believers tend to be prosumers – they consume and produce info about their theories to fill in the blanks (Kate Middleton)

Ontological insecurity: What is real on the Internet? The creation of autonomous citizens faces many uncertainties.

Conspiracy believing provides a way to cope with this feeling of distrust of all.

Question 17

INSTITUTIONS

Answer 17

Believing in conspiracy theories is positively correlated with institutional distrust (Mari et al., 2022). This is problematic, as institutions are the cornerstone of our society.

Also, culturally speaking, some cultures seem to be more uncertainty avoidant than other, and that can play a part.

->
“ Our findings showed that such effects of a cultural climate of higher intolerance of the unknown, although present and in the expected direction, contributed to (dis)trust in state institutions in a limited way.”

Question 18

SOCIETAL BEHAVIOUR:

Answer 18

During the COVID pandemic, a non-negligible part of the population considered that the virus might harmless, or that politicians might be hiding the truth about the pandemic,

Karić & colleagues (2021) have checked whether the conspiracy mindset would involve adhering less to preventative behaviour, and whether this could be explained by political distrust,

Believing that politics were hiding something leads to political distrust, which in turn returned a decrease of self and other protective behaviour

Question 19

Way to fight back against CT

Answer 19

Researchers have focused on way to fight back. For that, there is

inoculation

and

meta-inoculation.

Inoculation is about vaccinating people against misinformation (giving people immunity/ resistance to face conspiracy theories/ ‘the virus’).

[]Inoculation involves a threat that is followed by a refutation:

• This provides arguments against future attacks
• Provides the possibility to train argumentation skills

But why is this inoculation method hard to apply to conspiracy theories?

Question 20

But why is this inoculation method hard to apply to conspiracy theories?

Answer 20

Banas et al. (2013) tested this out. They showed an extract from Loose Change: Final Cut, a conspiratory documentary about 9/11. Then participants either received fact-based or logic-based arguments.

Results?

Inoculation seems to be working

Facts go over logic

-> Analytical thinking seems again to be a great way to prevent the belief in conspiracy theories.

However , meta-inoculation (i.e., inoculation against inoculation) also seems to be working, as it decreased the effect of the initial inoculation procedure

Question 21

inoculation vs meta-inoculation.

Answer 21

Inoculation:

is about vaccinating people against misinformation (giving people immunity/ resistance to face conspiracy theories/ ‘the virus’).

meta-inoculation :

inoculation against inoculation