Examining the Relationship Between Conspiracy Theories, Paranormal Beliefs, and Pseudoscience Acceptance Among a University Population

Abstract

SummaryVery little research has investigated whether believing in paranormal, conspiracy, and pseudoscientific claims are related, even though they share the property of having no epistemic warrant. The present study investigated the association between these categories of epistemically unwarranted beliefs. Results revealed moderate to strong positive correlations between the three categories of epistemically unwarranted beliefs, suggesting that believers in one type tended to also endorse other types. In addition, one individual difference measure, looking at differences in endorsing ontological confusions, was found to be predictive of both paranormal and conspiracy beliefs. Understanding the relationship between peoples' beliefs in these types of claims has theoretical implications for research into why individuals believe empirically unsubstantiated claims. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking

“…Psychology tests (locus of control, magical ideation, referential thinking, Tellegen absorption scale) and the Tobacyk paranormal belief scale have all been validated; however, because a new section of questions concerning detoxification was added to the paranormal belief scale, the belief scale had to be measured for reliability using Cronbach's alpha (Lobato et al 2014). The overall reliability of the entire paranormal belief test as well as the reliability of each subcategory of questions was tested.…”

“…These psychological tests included the Locus of Control (Rotter 1966), a measure of the relative internal vs. external control a person imparts to their life; Magical Ideation (Eckblad and Chapman 1983), a measurement of belief in magically controlled causation; Referential Thinking (Lenzenweger et al 1997), an index of how likely an individual is to perceive unrelated events as pertaining directly to themselves; and a Tellegen Absorption Scale (Tellegen and Atkinson 1974) which includes three submeasures: absorption (complete attention to a subject/object, either real or fantasy), stability (ability to alter impulses based on the situation), and introversion (impulse resistance/expression). Each of these tests has been linked to beliefs in paranormal and/or pseudoscientific beliefs (Peltzer 2003;Swami et al 2011;Lobato et al 2014).…”

“…Several psychological measures are correlated with increased belief in the paranormal (Hergovich et al 2008;Swami et al 2011), including views of external control (Newby and Davis 2004), magical ideation and referential thinking (Eckblad and Chapman 1983;Lenzenweger et al 1997), and introversion (i.e., absorption; Tellegen and Atkinson 1974;Lobato et al 2014). This study also found an association between these psychological measurements and students' pre-course paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs.…”

Associations between belief in conspiracy theories and the maladaptive personality traits of the personality inventory for DSM-5

“…In support of this perspective, studies have reported positive associations between belief in conspiracy theories and traits including paranoia, magical ideation, and belief in the paranormal (e.g., Brotherton & Eser, 2014;Lobato, Mendoza, Sims, & Chin, 2014;Stieger, Gumhalter, Tran, Voracek, & Swami, 2013;Swami et al, 2011). In explanation, it has been suggested that conspiracy theories and anomalous beliefs share features in common (e.g., both overly rely on intuitive-experiential processing of information and lack rigorous, selfgenerated testing; Swami, Voracek, Stieger, Tran & Furnham, 2014) and that endorsement of one set of anomalous beliefs (e.g., belief in the paranormal) makes acceptance of other anomalous beliefs (e.g., conspiracy theories) more likely (Ramsay, 2006).…”

The Conspiratorial Style in Lay Economic Thinking

“…Numerous personality factors, emotional states and social political attitudes have been found to correlate with support for CTs, including anomia (broadly: distrust towards authorities, feelings of powerlessness, and feelings of dissatisfaction about one's life; [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], personal and social (i.e., feeling of insecurity) anxiety [29][30][31], negative self-esteem [19,22,26,32], paranoia and schizotypy [16,21,26,28,[33][34][35][36][37], Right-Wing Authoritarianism [19,28,32,38]; but only marginally in [39], and irrationality or paranormal beliefs [16,21,24,26,28,30,35,[40][41][42][43][44]. Motivational processes have also been underlined.…”