Transcriber: lisa thompson Reviewer: David DeRuwe
Is there anything that you believe in that is implausible?
A Bigfoot, for example? The afterlife? UFOs?
What about a conspiracy theory?
What all of these three examples have in common,
aside from the fact that they are very hard to prove or disprove,
is that they require us to make a judgment,
a judgment on how likely we think that our belief is true.
And in doing so, we can either use our intuition or analytical thinking.
Recent research has shown
that people who believe in a conspiracy theory
tend to use analytical thinking less and intuition more.
A conspiracy theory is the belief that there is a hostile coalition,
a group of people who, in secrecy, pursue a harmful or deceptive goal.
Conspiracy theories are not wrong, per se,
but they are very often fueled by misinformation,
and they are hard to disprove.
And remember, some formerly labeled conspiracy beliefs,
like the Watergate scandal, for example, turned out to be true later.
Circulating conspiracy beliefs
is a phenomenon that probably is as old as our humanity itself.
However, the uniqueness of our present age
is that any view, idea, or opinion can be easily disseminated.
So that is why many of us may have the feeling
that conspiracy theories are all around us.
And it is actually not surprising when you may feel like this even more so lately
because conspiracy theories often gain momentum in times of crisis.
But why?
When living conditions have suddenly changed, are threatening,
and when the future seems uncertain,
people tend to experience feelings like anxiety, stress, frustration,
powerlessness - all these negative feelings.
And believing in a conspiracy theory
may be one way to minimize these negative feelings
by assigning meaning to uncertainty.
For instance, take the following example:
It cannot be that the COVID-19 pandemic happened accidentally.
There must be someone behind it who did this on purpose
to cause harm to other people, so it must be man-made.
And the more and more one feels to be lacking control,
the conspiracy belief becomes an even more attractive explanation
for otherwise inexplicable events that have affected us severely.
So interestingly,
believing in a conspiracy theory does serve a purpose,
namely to establish a sense of control.
Together with my colleagues
from the Universities of Basel, Oxford, and Lübeck,
we recently discovered some cognitive characteristics
of people who believe in a conspiracy theory.
For example, we discovered that they tend to jump to a conclusion.
And what is really interesting
is that although they find them rather implausible,
they still choose to believe in the conclusion they hastily arrived at.
Additionally, we also found out that once a judgment has been made,
people who believe in a conspiracy theory
tend to not integrate any further contradictory information
into their judgments anymore.
Importantly - and this is really remarkable -
not only people who believe in a conspiracy theory
show these cognitive characteristics;
we all do from time to time.
And that is why, by studying this unique type of personal judgment,
namely to believe in a conspiracy theory,
we, as researchers, are learning about the cognitive underpinnings
of human judgment and decision-making,
and it has taught us that when making a judgment,
our mind goes through three main cognitive processes of information gathering:
First, we have to assess the credibility or plausibility
or accuracy of given information.
Second, we have to decide how much information we should or want to consult.
And third,
we possibly deal also with information that contradicts our opinion.
And the way we deal with each of these three cognitive processes
can tell us whether we are leading with our intuition or analytical mind.
A simple example is, when choosing an ice cream flavor,
we may be more led with our intuition, consulting less information,
not needing to assess the credibility of different ice cream flavor signs
and do not seek out contradictory views on favorite ice cream flavors.
But in contrast, when investing in a big ticket item -
a car, for example, or a flat -
one may wish to gather more information before purchasing it,
even find negative reviews
and choose specific, credible sources that we can trust
before making a decision.
The power of intuition is huge,
and I’m pretty sure that all of you know that positive feeling
when having decided based on a gut reaction
and the ultimate decision turned out to be completely right.
Or vice versa -
the negative feeling when you have decided based on analytical thinking
but the ultimate decision does not feel right.
We all strive to make the right decision regardless.
And in general,
all of us use a balance between both: intuition and analytical thinking.
And all of us need both minds in order to make judgments and decisions.
We all need both minds
in order to be able to act and interact with others.
So sometimes we may lean to one side
and make a judgment that requires a leap to draw a conclusion,
and sometimes we swing to the other side and overanalyze.
So finally,
believing in a conspiracy theory in and of itself is not a bad thing.
In the end,
it is just the product of a typical human process, cognitive process.
It’s what we do with them, that can be inhuman.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)