Achi news desk-
I have been researching the psychology of conspiracy beliefs for seven years now and people often ask me why people believe in them. This is not a simple question.
There are many reasons people might support conspiracy theories. Something that stands out to me, however, is how our thinking styles can influence the way we process information and therefore how prone we can be to conspiracy beliefs.
A preference for intuitive thinking, rather than analytical thinking styles, appears to be associated with the endorsement of conspiracy theories.
Intuitive thinking is a style of thinking that relies on immediate and unconscious judgments. It often follows gut feelings, whereas analytical thinking involves slower, more deliberate and detailed processing of information.
I’ve written before about how we can develop a more challenging, analytical thinking style to reduce our predisposition to conspiracy beliefs.
Research has shown that critical thinking skills have many life benefits. For example, a 2017 study found that people who scored higher in critical thinking skills reported fewer negative life events (for example, getting a parking ticket or missing a flight). Critical thinking was a stronger predictor than intelligence for avoiding these types of events. It is not clear why this is.
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On the other hand, intuitive thinking has been linked to mental errors. For example, intuitive thinking styles can lead to an overreliance on mental shortcuts, which can also increase susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
This can lead to dangerous consequences. For example, increased intuitive thinking has been linked to anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs and vaccine hesitancy.
However, highly successful people, such as Albert Einstein and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, argued the importance of using their intuition and attributed their achievements to intuitive thinking.
The value of intuitive thinking
One advantage of intuitive thinking is that it takes little or no processing time, which allows us to make decisions and judgments quickly. And, in some circumstances, this is crucial.
People who work in emergency environments (such as the fire service) say that it is necessary to use intuitive thinking methods. During crises, it can be unrealistic to constantly use analytical thinking.
Experienced crisis managers often rely on intuitive thinking in the first place, as their default strategy, but as the task allows, draw on more analytical thinking later on. Critical and intuitive thinking styles can be used together.
What is also important is that this type of intuition develops through years of experience, which can produce expert intuition.
Intuition can be crucial in other areas too. Creativity is often seen as an advantage to intuitive thinking styles. A 2016 review of idea generation research found that creativity was positively associated with intuitive thinking.
Although creativity is difficult to define, it can be seen as similar to problem solving, where knowledge is used to achieve a goal, in a new or unexpected way.
However, it is also important to note that the 2016 review found that combining intuitive and analytical thinking styles was best for evaluating ideas.
What is the answer?
Now, research often focuses on developing ways to improve analytical thinking in order to reduce endorsement of dangerous conspiracy theories or reduce mental errors and misconceptions.
However, we often consider analytical and intuitive thinking styles as either, and when making decisions or judgments we must choose one over the other. However, a 2015 meta-analysis (where data from multiple studies are combined and analyzed) of 50 years of cognitive style research found evidence that these thinking styles may occur simultaneously.
Rather than two opposite ends of a spectrum, they are separate constructs, meaning that these thinking styles can occur together. Research in decision-making also suggests that thinking style is flexible and that the best decisions are made when the thinking method a person uses matches the situation in question.
Some situations are more suitable for analytical thinking styles (such as number tasks) while some are more suitable for using intuition (such as understanding facial expressions). An adaptive decision maker is adept at using both thinking styles.
So perhaps one way to reduce susceptibility to conspiracy theories is to improve adaptive decision-making processes. My study in 2021 found that when people were confronted with the misconceptions they had previously made, overestimating the extent to which others endorsed anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, they re-evaluated their decisions. This could suggest that thinking styles can depend on the situation and the information at hand.
Although analytical thinking is better in many situations, we should not dismiss the intuitive thinking style favored by conspiracy theorists as impractical or rigid. The answer could be in understanding both thinking styles and being able to adjust our thinking styles when necessary.
