/pnd/ - Politics, News, Debate

>>354490

Hardcore what now? Which?

us

vid pic lolita

https://sizl.ink/xAkli

you are quite honestly

THE STUPIDEST ADULT

ive ever seen

you areSOSTUPID

that you believe Jim Stone worked for the NSA

JIM STONE N-E-V-E-R WORKED FOR THE NSA

YOU….. ARE…… STUPID….

WHICH IS WHY YOU'RE GULLIBLE

J I M S T O N E

N E V E R

W O R K E D

F O R T H E

N S A

>>354489

DUDE….. YOU ARESO GULLIBLE

>>354489

F A K E , F A K E , F A K E

EVERYTHING YOU POST IS FAKE

QUESTION : WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU RESEARCHED, COSS-REFERRENCED, OR VERIFIED ANYTHING?

>>354489

QUESTION : WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU GOT SOMETHING RIGHT?

(LOL @ YOU DROPPING OUT OF SCHOOL…. WHITE TRASH)

>>354489

QUESTON : WHO IS THE LEAST EDUCATED IDIOT IN /PND/?

People with high education are less likely than people with low education to believe in conspiracy theories. It is yet unclear why these effects occur, however, as education predicts a range of cognitive, emotional, and social outcomes. The present research sought to identify mediators of the relationship between education and conspiracy beliefs. Results of Study 1 revealed three independent mediators of this relationship, namely, belief in simple solutions for complex problems, feelings of powerlessness, and subjective social class. A nationally representative sample (Study 2) replicated these findings except for subjective social class. Moreover, variations in analytic thinking statistically accounted for the path through belief in simple solutions. I conclude that the relationship between education and conspiracy beliefs cannot be reduced to a single mechanism but is the result of the complex interplay of multiple psychological factors that are associated with education. © 2016 The Authors. Applied Cognitive Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

In our globalized world, people frequently encounter distressing collective events such as economic crises, wars, natural disasters, epidemics, and the unexpected deaths of celebrities. Large groups of regular citizens make sense of such events through a belief in conspiracy theories (Oliver & Wood, 2014). Conspiracy beliefs are commonly defined as assumptions that a group of actors meet in secret agreement in order to pursue goals that are widely seen as malevolent (Zonis & Joseph, 1994). Such conspiracy theories often implicate powerful groups like governmental institutions (e.g., allegations that 9/11 was an inside job), major branches of industry (e.g., pharmaceutical companies), or ethnic groups that carry negative stereotypes (e.g., Muslims Jews). Although many different conspiracy theories exist, belief in one conspiracy theory predicts belief in conceptually unrelated conspiracy theories (Abalakina‐Paap, Stephan, Craig, & Gregory, 1999, Goertzel, 1994, Swami et al., 2011, Van Prooijen & Acker, 2015) or even contradictory conspiracy theories (Wood, Douglas, & Sutton, 2012). This suggests that people vary in the extent to which they are generally prone to explain societal events through assumptions of conspiracy formation. Correspondingly, research within this emerging domain has identified a range of demographic, individual‐difference, and situational factors that predict people's susceptibility to conspiracy theories (for overviews, see Bilewicz, Cichocka, & Soral, 2015; Van Prooijen & Van Lange, 2014)

One demographic predictor of belief in conspiracy theories is education level. Various studies revealed that high education levels predict a decreased likelihood that people believe in conspiracy theories (Douglas et al., 2016; Van Prooijen, Krouwel, & Pollet, 2015). What is unclear, however, is why this relationship emerges. Education is associated with a range of cognitive, emotional, and social outcomes, and hence, there may be multiple underlying processes that explain this relationship. Establishing these underlying processes provides novel insights that may form the basis for future interventions designed to systematically decrease conspiracy beliefs among the population. This is important given the many detrimental implications of believing in conspiracy theories, for public health (Oliver & Wood, 2014), political participation (Goertzel, 1994; Jolley & Douglas, 2014), and radicalization (Van Prooijen et al., 2015).

In the present research, I examine four theoretically plausible mediators of the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories. While education is likely to have a myriad of effects, I focus specifically on the implications of education for the general psychological domains of cognitive complexity, experiences of control, self‐esteem, and social standing. These domains not only have been theorized and found to be core outcomes of education but also they have been identified as important predictors of belief in conspiracy theories. In the following, I will illuminate how these general psychological domains are theoretically and empirically related to education, and why they are likely to predict belief in conspiracy theories.

Mediators of the Education–Conspiracy Link

Cognitive complexity

Education is associated with cognitive complexity, defined here as people's ability to detect nuances and subtle differences across judgment domains, along with a tendency to consciously reflect on these nuances. People with high cognitive complexity are better equipped to attain high education levels; moreover, education nurtures and develops such complexity (e.g., Deary, Strand, Smith, & Fernandes, 2007; Rindermann & Neubauer, 2004). It therefore stands to reason that education negatively predicts a tendency to embrace relatively simplistic explanations for complex events. Consistently, research found that education level is associated with disbelief in paranormal phenomena, a finding that was mediated by analytic thinking—that is, deliberative and conscious information processing (Aarnio & Lindeman, 2005; see also Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012). These arguments are relevant for belief in conspiracy theories, which is correlated with belief in paranormal phenomena (e.g., Darwin, Neave, & Holmes, 2011), and which also has been described as a simplification of reality. For instance, Hofstadter (1966) noted that a core function of conspiracy theories is to provide straightforward explanations for complex and distressing events that are hard to comprehend otherwise.

Research on intuitive versus analytic thinking styles and conspiracy beliefs yielded results that are consistent with the idea that increased cognitive complexity predicts decreased belief in conspiracy theories. Swami and colleagues (2014) found that analytic thinking decreases belief in conspiracy theories; furthermore, intuitive thinking—that is, an information processing style that is based on heuristics instead of careful reflection—increases belief in conspiracy theories. The seemingly articulate nature of some conspiracy theories notwithstanding, these findings are consistent with the assertion that conspiracy beliefs are grounded in a general tendency to embrace relatively simplistic ideas. A study by Van Prooijen and colleagues (2015) on the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and political radicalization provides converging evidence for the role of cognitive complexity. These scholars found that conspiracy beliefs are strongly associated with a belief in simple solutions for complex societal problems. Moreover, education predicted a decreased belief in such simple solutions. It can therefore be hypothesized that the negative relationship between education and belief in conspiracy theories is mediated by cognitive complexity, which is operationalized in the present study as a decreased tendency to believe in simple solutions for complex problems (Hypothesis 1).

Experience of control

Throughout an educational trajectory, people learn how to independently solve problems, and they acquire the social skills that are necessary to influence their social environment. It has been noted that, as a consequence, education makes people feel more strongly in control of their life and their social world, thus decreasing feelings of powerlessness (Mirowsky & Ross, 2003). Empirical research confirms that education is associated with the extent to which people feel in control of their social environment, which is a common explanation for the effects of education on for instance positive health behavior (e.g., Mirowsky & Ross, 1998) and well‐being (Ross & Van Willigen, 1997). The effects of education on feelings of control and powerlessness are likely to hold implications for people's susceptibility to conspiracy theories.

People are particularly receptive to conspiracy theories when they lack control, and hence feel powerless. Lacking a sense of control leads to mental sense‐making in the form of illusory pattern perception, that is, connecting dots that is not necessarily connected in reality (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). These sense‐making activities are central in belief in conspiracy theories, which are designed to increase understanding of a distressing situation. Various studies established a causal effect of lacking control, as well as the closely related concept of subjective uncertainty, on belief in conspiracy theories (Van Prooijen, 2016; Van Prooijen & Acker, 2015). Likewise, people are most likely to believe in conspiracy theories in response to distressing societal events that they cannot control (Van Prooijen & Van Dijk, 2014). Also correlational findings confirm that feelings of powerlessness predict belief in conspiracy theories (Abalakina‐Paap et al., 1999). I therefore expected that education predicts decreased feelings of powerlessness or increased feelings of control, which mediates the relationship of education with conspiracy beliefs (Hypothesis 2).

Lack of Self‐esteem

Education frequently has been linked to self‐esteem. The relationship between self‐esteem and education—although often smaller than anticipated—appears robust across empirical studies, and the evidence suggests that this relationship is primarily due to educational performance influencing self‐esteem rather than vice versa (for an overview, see Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003). Consistently, students largely base their self‐esteem on their academic successes and failures (Crocker, Sommers, & Luhtanen, 2002). These findings suggest that education predicts self‐esteem. What are the implications of such self‐esteem differences for belief in conspiracy theories?

There is evidence suggesting that belief in conspiracy theories is associated with low self‐esteem. For instance, Abalakina‐Paap and colleagues (1999) reasoned that conspiracy theories allow people with low self‐esteem to blame others for their predicaments. Their results support a negative association between self‐esteem and conspiracy belief, albeit weakly so. Various other studies also find a modest empirical relationship between low self‐esteem and increased conspiracy belief (Cichocka, Marchlewska, & Golec de Zavala, 2016; Crocker, Luhtanen, Broadnax, & Blaine, 1999; Swami et al., 2011). I therefore hypothesized that education would predict increased self‐esteem, which in turn would mediate the relationship between education and belief in conspiracy theories (Hypothesis 3).

Social standing

Education influences people's social standing relative to others, both in objective as well as subjective terms. Education is intimately related with people's objective social standing in terms of socio‐economic status (SES): People with high education are more likely to occupy the relatively privileged positions in society in terms of desirable jobs and high income (e.g., Griliches & Mason, 1972). These objective indicators also impact people's subjective reality; however, people with high education tend to believe that they are held in high regard and perceive themselves as doing well in life economically compared with others (Mirowsky & Ross, 2003). Here, I argue that subjectively perceiving oneself as high or low on the societal hierarchy (i.e., subjective social class) is likely to influence the extent to which people believe in conspiracy theories.

Specifically, whereas subjectively perceiving oneself as having low social class may increase communitarianism within one's direct social environment (Piff, Stancato, Martinez, Kraus, & Keltner 2012), it also reflects feelings of being marginalized, and having low social standing, within society as a whole. These feelings of societal marginalization are relevant for people's susceptibility to conspiracy theories. Research indicates that communitarian but marginalized groups within society tend to make sense of the realistic problems that their group faces through assumptions of conspiracy formation (Crocker et al., 1999). In a similar vein, subjective low social class may lead people to blame the psychological or realistic problems that they face (e.g., alienation from the societal elite, unemployment, and relative deprivation) to the existence of malevolent conspiracies. As such, I predict that the relationship between education and belief in conspiracy theories is mediated by subjective social class, even when controlling for objective indicators of social class (i.e., income level; Hypothesis 4).

To assess feelings of powerlessness, I asked the following question: ‘How powerless do you usually feel when you watch how events unfold in the news?’ (1 = Not at all powerless; 7 = Very powerless). Furthermore, I measured participants' self‐esteem with the following question: ‘How positive or negative do you generally feel about yourself?’ (1 = Very negative, 7 = Very positive). Previous research reveals that one‐item measures can yield an indication of self‐esteem that has equal convergent and predictive validity as longer self‐esteem questionnaires (Robins et al., 2001).

To measure subjective social class, participants responded to the McArthur scale of subjective social class (Adler et al., 2000). Participants were presented with a ladder ranging from 1 (bottom) to 10 (top), and were asked to imagine that the ladder represents the place that people have in society. At the top of the ladder are citizens with the highest SES, and at the bottom are citizens with the lowest socio‐economic standing. Participants were then asked to indicate where they believe they are placed in society in terms of their socio‐economic standing. We also asked participants to indicate their monthly income with five categories: 1 (0 to 1000 Euros), 2 (1001 to 2000 Euros), 3 (2001 to 3000 Euros), 4 (3001 to 4000 Euros), and 5 (more than 4000 Euros). Income is a proxy for objective social class and was therefore included as control variable in the analyses. Subjective and objective social class were moderately but significantly correlated (r = .26, p < .001).