The Development and Validation of the Epistemic Vice Scale (original) (raw)
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Epistemic vice predicts acceptance of Covid-19 misinformation
Episteme, 2021
Why are mistaken beliefs about COVID-19 so prevalent? Political identity, education and other demographic variables explain only part of the differences between people in their susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation. This paper focuses on another explanation: epistemic vice. Epistemic vices are character traits that interfere with acquiring, maintaining, and transmitting knowledge. If the basic assumption of vice epistemology is right, then people with epistemic vices such as indifference to the truth or rigidity in their belief structures will tend to be more susceptible to believing COVID-19 misinformation. We carried out an observational study (US adult sample, n = 998) in which we measured the level of epistemic vice of participants using a novel Epistemic Vice Scale that captures features of the current competing analyses of epistemic vice in the literature. We also asked participants questions eliciting the extent to which they subscribe to myths and misinformation about COVID-19. We find overwhelming evidence to the effect that epistemic vice is associated with susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation. In fact, the association turns out to be stronger than with political identity, educational attainment, scores on the Cognitive Reflection Test, personality, dogmatism, and need for closure. We conclude that this offers evidence in favor of the empirical presuppositions of vice epistemology.
International Journal of Research and Review, 2023
Interest in conspiracy theories is growing in both scholarly and popular discourse. Much research has been undertaken to discover the personality traits of those who are prone to believing conspiracy theories. This study attempted to investigate another possible factor that could influence this. 117 adults volunteered to take part in this study. The Need for Cognition Scale (NCS-6), which measures an individual's desire to engage in challenging cognitive activity, was administered on the respondents as well as the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ) intended to measure a person's susceptibility to explanations offered by conspiracy theories about societal phenomena. The respondents NCS-6 total weighted mean indicated that a need for challenging cognitive activity was neither characteristic nor uncharacteristic of them. However, their CMQ total weighted mean showed that they believe conspiracy theories very likely explain societal phenomena. The results also indicated a statistically significant low positive relationship between the respondents' NCS-6 scores and CMQ scores. This implies that as the respondents' need for challenging cognitive activity rises, their susceptibility to explanations offered by conspiracy theories about societal phenomena slightly increase as well. In addition, a significant difference was also established between the respondents' Need for Cognition Scale scores when grouped according to presence or absence of romantic involvement.
The psychological and political correlates of conspiracy theory beliefs
Scientific Reports, 2022
Understanding the individual-level characteristics associated with conspiracy theory beliefs is vital to addressing and combatting those beliefs. While researchers have identified numerous psychological and political characteristics associated with conspiracy theory beliefs, the generalizability of those findings is uncertain because they are typically drawn from studies of only a few conspiracy theories. Here, we employ a national survey of 2021 U.S. adults that asks about 15 psychological and political characteristics as well as beliefs in 39 different conspiracy theories. Across 585 relationships examined within both bivariate (correlations) and multivariate (regression) frameworks, we find that psychological traits (e.g., dark triad) and non-partisan/ideological political worldviews (e.g., populism, support for violence) are most strongly related to individual conspiracy theory beliefs, regardless of the belief under consideration, while other previously identified correlates (e.g., partisanship, ideological extremity) are inconsistently related. We also find that the correlates of specific conspiracy theory beliefs mirror those of conspiracy thinking (the predisposition), indicating that this predisposition operates like an 'average' of individual conspiracy theory beliefs. Overall, our findings detail the psychological and political traits of the individuals most drawn to conspiracy theories and have important implications for scholars and practitioners seeking to prevent or reduce the impact of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theory beliefs are associated with numerous societal harms, including vaccine refusal, prejudice against vulnerable groups, and political violence 1-6. To lay the groundwork for the development of effective and practical tools to minimize such harms, broad, interdisciplinary research programs have developed over the past decade 7-11. The growing literature has collectively identified dozens of individual-level psychological and political factors that are correlated with conspiracy theory beliefs 11. However, the literature has developed in a piecemeal fashion, with singular studies oftentimes considering only a small number of conspiracy theories or potential correlates at a time 12. This brings into question the generalizability of these previous findings. Our central concern is the extent to which the previously identified psychological and political correlates of conspiracy theory beliefs vary-in strength, direction, and statistical significance-depending on the specific conspiracy theory belief being examined. For example, Republicanism and conservatism are typically associated with the belief that Barack Obama faked his birth certificate 13. Such a finding reveals important details about the basic nature of "birther" beliefs and could even be used to develop strategies to correct such beliefs 14. But should we also expect that the factors related to birtherism are also related to beliefs in other conspiracy theories, such as the assertion that the moon landing was faked? Are the characteristics related to birtherism similar to those of the average conspiracy theory believer, or specific to believers in birtherism or a few other conspiracy theories? Similar questions may be asked of the political and psychological characteristics associated with believers of other conspiracy theories. Going further, should we expect because, for example, narcissism is associated with Holocaust denial and support for violence with QAnon beliefs that, on average, those exhibiting a tendency
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2021
Research on belief in conspiracy theories identified many predictors but often failed to investigate them together. In the present study, we tested how the most important predictors of beliefs in conspiracy theories explain endorsing COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 conspiracy theories and conspiracy mentality. Apart from these three measures of conspiratorial thinking, participants (N = 354) completed several measures of epistemic, existential, and social psychological motives, as well as cognitive processing variables. While many predictors had significant correlations, only three consistently explained conspiratorial beliefs when included in one model: higher spirituality (specifically eco-awareness factor), higher narcissism, and lower analytical thinking. Compared to the other two conspiratorial measures, predictors less explained belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, but this depended on items' content. We conclude that the same predictors apply to belief in both COVID and non-COVID conspiracies and identify New Age spirituality as an important contributor to such beliefs.
2020
Objective: We sought to replicate and extend research on the personological correlates of conspiracy beliefs by examining their associations with abnormal- and normal-range personality domain-level traits and, for the first time, lower-order personality facets; we also examined internalizing symptoms. Method: The study comprised four samples of community and student participants (Ntotal=1,927), and examined the cross-sectional relations between self-reported conspiratorial ideation and measures of (a) the six-factor model of general personality, (b) intellectual humility, (c) personality disorder traits (narcissism, psychopathy, disinhibition), and (d) internalizing symptoms (depression, anxiety, anger). Results: Agreeableness and conscientiousness were significant negative correlates of conspiracy beliefs, although other general personality dimensions tended to manifest negligible associations. Significant associations between lower-order personality facets and conspiracy beliefs, ...
Monological or Ideological? Themes and Psychosocial Predictors of Conspiracy Belief
2023
Research in conspiracy theories has aimed to categorise beliefs, understand motivations, and investigate predictors in order to better understand their adoption. A growing body of research exists investigating conspiracy theories as means for satisfying different psychological and social needs, thought to be related to different cognitive styles, personality, and ideologies. To expand on this, the current study investigates a number of conspiracy theories through factor analysis, and psychosocial correlates of each factor. Factor analysis suggests conspiracy theories of similar topics tend to group together in their level of endorsement. Factors cover government malfeasance, anti-scientific rhetoric, extraterrestrials, new-age spirituality, and political/social views. Correlation and regression analyses show differing relationships between each factor and psychosocial factors including political/ideological values, personality traits, demographics, and social media platform usage. The findings add to understanding around different pathways to conspiracy beliefs and why different groups may be susceptible to certain theories. This knowledge may inform a more nuanced approach to intervention than currently used generic approaches.
People who strongly endorse conspiracy theories typically exhibit biases in domain-general reasoning. We describe an overfitting hypothesis, according to which (a) such theories overfit conspiracy-related data at the expense of wider generalisability, and (b) reasoning biases reflect, at least in part, the need to reduce the resulting dissonance between the conspiracy theory and wider data. This hypothesis implies that reasoning biases should be more closely associated with belief in implausible conspiracy theories (e.g., the moon landing was faked) than with more plausible ones (e.g., the Russian Federation orchestrated the attack on Sergei Skripal). In two pre-registered studies, we found that endorsement of implausible conspiracy theories, but not plausible ones, was associated with reduced information sampling in an information-foraging task and with less reflective reasoning. Thus, the relationship between belief in conspiracy theories and reasoning is not homogeneous, and reasoning is not linked specifically to the "conspiracy" aspect of conspiracy theories. Instead, it may reflect an adaptive response to the tension between implausible theories and other beliefs and data.
Measuring Belief in Conspiracy Theories: The Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale
Frontiers in Psychology, 2013
The psychology of conspiracy theory beliefs is not yet well understood, although research indicates that there are stable individual differences in conspiracist ideation -individuals' general tendency to engage with conspiracy theories. Researchers have created several short self-report measures of conspiracist ideation. These measures largely consist of items referring to an assortment of prominent conspiracy theories regarding specific realworld events. However, these instruments have not been psychometrically validated, and this assessment approach suffers from practical and theoretical limitations. Therefore, we present the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs (GCB) scale: a novel measure of individual differences in generic conspiracist ideation. The scale was developed and validated across four studies. In Study 1, exploratory factor analysis of a novel 75-item measure of non-eventbased conspiracist beliefs identified five conspiracist facets. The 15-item GCB scale was developed to sample from each of these themes. Studies 2, 3, and 4 examined the structure and validity of the GCB, demonstrating internal reliability, content, criterion-related, convergent and discriminant validity, and good test-retest reliability. In sum, this research indicates that the GCB is a psychometrically sound and practically useful measure of conspiracist ideation, and the findings add to our theoretical understanding of conspiracist ideation as a monological belief system unpinned by a relatively small number of generic assumptions about the typicality of conspiratorial activity in the world.
Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust
2020
Given the potential political and social significance of conspiracy beliefs, a substantial and growing body of work examines the individual-level correlates of belief in conspiracy theories and general conspiratorial predispositions. However, although we know much about the psychological antecedents of conspiracy endorsement, we know less about the individual-level political causes of these prevalent and consequential beliefs. Our work draws from the extant literature to posit that endorsement of conspiracy theories is a motivated process that serves both ideological and psychological needs. In doing so, we develop a theory that identifies a particular type of person-one who is both highly knowledgeable about politics and lacking in trust-who is most susceptible to ideologically motivated conspiracy endorsement. Further, we demonstrate that the moderators of belief in conspiracy theories are strikingly different for conservatives and liberals.