What does this mean? On the one hand, we find that conspiracy belief is correlated with lower levels of analytic thinking (Swami, et. al., 2014) and lower levels of education (Douglas, et al., 2016). On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that thinking skills and education account for conspiratorial perspectives. Correlation is about relationships, not about causation. Lower education levels, for instance, tend to correlate with lower socio-economic level. This lower level on the totem pole might account much more toward the proclivity toward conspiracy, than does educational level. Furthermore, when a person lives continually under stress (as do people with low paying jobs or no jobs at all), we know that cognitive functions tend to decline. Psychoanalysts speak of this as regression and note it’s profound psychodynamic damage to the individual and to the groups in which these individuals function.
This complex set of factors that contribute to the creation of a conspiratorial mind-set is evident in cross-societal analyses of conspiracy. “In sum, [according to Van Prooijen] conspiracy theories flourish particularly among people at the edges of the political spectrum in modern democracies – specifically, the populist left and the populist right. Van Prooijen is focusing specifically on American and European societies.
Conspiracy theories are relatively more pronounced at the political left in countries where the left tends to be more radical (e.g., parts of Latin America) and relatively more pronounced at the political right in countries where the right tends to be more radical (e.g., the US). Indeed, the political polarization seen in US politics in recent decades has added to the potential for political extremes to develop and believe conspiracy theories, rejecting information and expert advice from scientists and experienced leaders in various fields (medical, climate, economics etc.) simply on the basis that these experts and leaders are part of out-groups and are therefore likely part of the conspiracy.
The limitations in critical thinking and logic are apparent in people and groups who attempt to sense-make through simple reasons—this is where regression in cognitive functions is evident. The level of regression can be quite amazing. Reasoning, for instance, is deeply flawed in the case of Pizzagate where QAnon believers accept a reality in which high-profile Democrats are sexually abusing children at a Washington, D.C. pizzeria.
This outrageous reasoning was not benign. It led to an armed attack on the establishment by a gunman who believed the theory. As Douglas and her associates (Douglas, et. al., 2016) suggest, people who tend to believe these conspiracies “instead of appreciating the complexity of many developments in society, extremist ideologies assert that societal problems occur for simple reasons – for instance, because they are caused deliberately by corrupt outgroups”.
This view is somewhat in contrast to the “connecting the dots” notion where some conspiracy theories, like QAnon, is made up of a complex array of disconnected events and people. However, what Douglas is reflecting is that “simple reasons” are cause and effect solutions often identified by people who lack critical thinking. Indeed, Jay Cullen (2018) notes that:
Download Article 1K Club… there are people that because of their (lack of) educational background, past experiences, and tendency to accept conspiracy theories will simply not accept scientifically derived information from experts (that conflicts with their in-group views). They reject scientific expertise a priori and cannot be brought to change their opinion with factual information when their opinion on a matter is not fact based.
