Believers in Conspiracy Theories Lack Critical Thinking Skills

Over the last few years, conspiracy thinking seems to have mushroomed — most visibly perhaps in the US, where QAnon supporters stormed the Capitol. Elsewhere, across the world, coronavirus-related conspiracies have abounded; one large-scale survey conducted last year found that as many as one in five Britons believed the COVID-19 fatality rate may have been exaggerated.

We already know that certain factors make individuals particularly prone to conspiratorial thinking — their level of education, for example, or a desire to feel special. And a new study, published in Applied Cognitive Psychology, has identified another?facet of cognition linked to conspiratorial beliefs: critical thinking. Anthony Lantian from Université Paris Nanterre and colleagues find that the higher the level of critical thinking, the lower the belief in conspiracy theories, potentially offering a path out of conspiratorial thinking for those particularly susceptible.

In the first study, 86 participants were asked to complete a conspiracy belief scale, indicating how much they agreed with statements such as “certain significant events have been the result of the activity of a small group who secretly manipulate world events”.

They then took part in a critical thinking activity, reading a letter to the editor of a newspaper arguing that overnight parking should be banned in a particular area. Participants were asked to respond to each paragraph of the letter, assessing the relevance of the argument and evaluating the letter as whole, then wrote their responses in the form of a letter to the editor. These letters were assessed by judges on various measures of critical thinking, such as identifying good arguments, seeing other explanations, and avoiding over-generalization. The team found that the higher participants scored on the critical thinking task, the less they believed in conspiracy theories.

However, the relationship in the first study didn’t quite reach significance. So a second study replicated the first, this time with more participants; overall, 252 took part. As well as completing the conspiracy thinking measure and the letter evaluation task, participants also reported on their own critical thinking skills.

Again, those with high levels of critical thinking ability were less likely to believe in conspiracy theories. Interestingly enough, however, conspiracy-minded participants didn’t seem aware of their critical thinking skills — both those with high and low levels of conspiracy thinking rated themselves highly on critical thinking. This makes sense when you consider the narratives of many conspiracy theory movements, which often frame themselves as true critical or free thinkers, seeing the light where others cannot.

The results may be useful when designing interventions to combat conspiratorial thinking?— but being careful about how these are framed would be crucial. If someone truly believes in a specific conspiracy theory, telling them they lack critical thinking skills is unlikely to help and may instead further entrench them in their beliefs, as researchers have highlighted in coverage of QAnon. The study is also correlational — we can’t say, based on these results, that lack of critical thinking is the reason people believe conspiracy theories.

Further research could look at why critical thinking might protect against conspiratorial thinking, as well as explore degrees of conspiratorial thinking. When does somebody tip from “healthy skepticism”, as the team puts it, into full-on conspiracy? Where is the line between critically engaging with what the media or politicians tell us, for example, and labelingB everything as “fake news”? Though media coverage may focus on the “true believers” of particular conspiracy theories, the journey to such a staunch position often begins somewhere far more reasonable; tracking this journey could provide valuable insight.

Conspiracy Theories More Entertaining

Conspiracy theories stoke anxiety and uncertainty and can even threaten the health of those who espouse them. Take Covid-19 anti-vaxxers, for example, who put themselves at risk by refusing a vaccine. So given those negative consequences, it’s surprising that conspiracy theories are so prolific.

Research shows that beliefs that other groups are colluding secretly to pursue malevolent goals (the definition of a conspiracy theory) are more common during times of crisis — like a global pandemic. Heightened anxiety is thought to lead people to (erroneously) believe that there are hostile forces at play. But now a paper in the British Journal of Psychology reveals another reason for why conspiracy theories can be appealing. Jan-Willem van Prooijen at the Free University Amsterdam and colleagues found that conspiracy theories provoke a stronger emotional reaction than relatively dull-but-true reality — and this encourages belief in them, especially for people who have the personality trait of being “sensation-seeking”.

In two initial studies, participants read either a conspiratorial or an accurate story about the Notre Dame fire in Paris (which was in reality a tragic accident, but in the conspiratorial version was set on fire deliberately) or the death of the US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (who died by suicide in his cell, but in the conspiratorial version was ‘murdered’ by powerful people). Finally, all participants were asked whether they believed that there was a conspiracy behind the fire or death of Epstein.

The team found that participants who had read the conspiracy text also reported stronger belief in the conspiracy theory in both cases. But importantly, the conspiracy text was also judged to be more entertaining, and it seemed to be this “entertainment value” that ultimately led these participants to have a stronger belief in the conspiracy theory.?

A further study more clearly linked the emotive nature of a text to its entertainment value.?This time, participants read either an emotion-laden or emotionless description of a fictitious election, with no reference to any conspiracy theories. The text with lots of emotion was deemed to be more entertaining and also provoked a stronger emotional reaction. What’s more, even though it didn’t mention any conspiracies, participants who’d read this text were more likely to agree with conspiracy-related statements (such as “There will be cheating in the results counting process” or “A conspiracy will determine the election outcome”) — but only if they also scored relatively highly on a measure of sensation-seeking.

Sensation-seekers love excitement and thrills; they also enjoy scary movies and new and risky experiences, for example. And, according to yet another study reported in the paper, employees who score higher on the sensation-seeking dimensions of boredom susceptibility, disinhibition and adventure-seeking are more likely to believe that their?bosses secretly pursue malevolent goals — in other words, to believe in workplace conspiracy theories.

A final study assessed participants’ belief in various common conspiracy theories, such as that the US government had advance knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and that NASA faked the Moon landings. The researchers found a link between the strength of these beliefs and scores on the three dimensions of sensation-seeking identified in the employee study. “The results reveal that sensation seeking reliably predicts people’s belief in specific and concrete conspiracy theories,” they write.

So — yes, conspiracy theories may make people feel more anxious and uncertain. But perhaps sensation-seekers not only don’t mind this, they even enjoy it. The researchers add that to have this effect and attract believers, a conspiracy theory would have to be at least somewhat credible. But let’s not forget that some 12 million Americans reportedly believe that the US is ruled by giant lizards…?Scores on the sensation-seeking scale alone clearly don’t explain that extreme type of misguided belief. But given just how common conspiracy theories are, any insight into what encourages people to believe them is interesting.

Of course, the idea that adding emotion to a factual story makes it more appealing is hardly new: news outlets and true crime podcasts do it all the time. But this new work does also perhaps imply that the more entertaining we can make the truth, the more likely that sensation-seekers will buy into it, rather than a twisted alternative.