A new study in the journal Personality and Individual Differences published this week looks at what makes people more likely to be skeptical of unfounded beliefs in the paranormal or conspiratorial. The study proposes that “skepticism requires both sufficient analytic skills, and the motivation to form beliefs on rational grounds.”
Or, in plain language: people who are smart and try to be rational and evidence-based in their thinking are less likely to believe in either conspiracy theories (the moon landing was faked, climate change is a hoax) and the paranormal (ghosts are real).
Given that the implication of the study is that climate deniers are dumb and irrational, it’s not exactly groundbreaking stuff. Nor is it the sort of thing one would expect to see on a denier site like WUWT. But here it is.
It seems that WUWT is so thoroughly twisted by denial that they think the study actually confirms that they are super smart and totally rational, so of course they’re skeptical of any unfounded belief in climate change. Unfortunately for WUWT, the press release on the study posted to WUWT includes climate denial as an example...twice. (For more delightful mockery of the inanity of WUWT and its commenters, Sou at HotWhopper has a post up on the study and the blog’s response.)
Deniers aside, the findings of the study is that just being smart doesn’t tip one towards being skeptical. Rather, skepticism is more likely when being smart is combined in a mind that prioritizes logic, reason, and an openness to updating one’s beliefs based on new information.
This idea helps to explain a story in the New York Times yesterday, which provided up-to-date polling data reinforcing the idea that getting an education doesn’t make conservatives any more likely to accept the science on climate change. Instead, it pushes them in the opposite direction.
For several years, academic studies have converged on an understanding that on a very simplified neurological level, conservatives are more likely to be emotive, and liberals more logical in their thought processes (see Chris Mooney’s seminal 2012 book on The Republican Brain for more). Combine this intuitive thinking with the average conservative brain’s more hierarchical and authority-deferring worldview (as opposed to the liberal brain’s egalitarian individualism) and the result, as David Roberts explains in recent Vox post, is a reliance on elite cues to inform beliefs. Since the talking heads on Fox, in the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and on GOP ballots tell conservatives warming is a hoax, they use their education and intelligence to rationalize their denial to fit with what their trusted spokespeople say… even if that means over a century of science is a Chinese hoax and paranormal activity is totally normal.
Which means that those who boycott advertising companies on objectionable far-right media like Breitbart and Sean Hannity might be onto something. Get advertisers to drop media that pushes denial onto the public, and we might have found the Keurig to what ails us.
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