Perception of threat in an uncertain situation leads to a heightened need for closure (NFC), thereby facilitating conspiracy thinking (CT). In these highly uncertain situations, there are two prominent strategies upon which people rely to cope with the ambiguity: religious beliefs and judgmental heuristics, specifically the representativeness heuristic (RH).
Kendra Bradley, Phuc Huynh Le, & Abigail Smith
Research Question
Target Audience
How Does the Need for Closure
Facilitate Conspiracy Thinking?
Explanation:
Research to Product
Literature Summary
Acknowledgements
References
People create conspiracy theories as a set of explanations for ambiguous or fearful events. They typically infer some covert motivation to conspire from a powerful group of people to make sense of these uncertain situations (Douglas et al., 2017). At the root of conspiracy thinking (CT) is the perception of a threat in an uncertain situation which leads to the need for cognitive closure (NFC), or the desire for a concrete understanding of an ambiguous event (Leman & Cinnirella, 2013). The body of research reviewed in this paper suggests that NFC facilitates CT via three main variables.
Thus, our question is: How do the variables religiosity, uncertain threat, and judgmental heuristics facilitate CT, mediated by NFC?
In times of uncertainty, fear, and threat, conspiracy theories are more prevalent and act as a coping mechanism for people to understand and process the events around them. However, these theories can cause dangerous, sometimes even fatal, consequences. Previous research suggests that the need for closure (NFC), which increases when people find themselves in an uncertain situation, facilitates conspiracy thinking (CT) via three main variables.
Perception of Uncertainty-Related Threats
Some variables that predict increased perception of uncertainty-related threats and thus increased CT/NFC are intolerance of uncertainty (IU), anxiety, paranoia, delusion-proneness, lack of knowledge, and mistrust. Once a threat has been perceived, individuals resort to two broad categories of coping mechanisms: religious belief, which can include religious fundamentalism or religiosity more generally, and the representativeness heuristic, which includes the conjunction fallacy and perception of pseudo-meaningful relationships.
Religiosity
Religiosity refers to how much value an individual places upon their religious beliefs. Religious fundamentalism is a more extreme version of religiosity, wherein a person strongly adheres to a religious lifestyle and attaches immoderate importance to their religious dogma. Research has found a positive relationship between religious fundamentalism and CT, and religiosity and CT, and both relationships tend to be moderated by NFC. Essentially, individuals high on NFC turn to religion and conspiracy theories because they desire concrete and satisfying explanations for ambiguous events, which otherwise cause them great anxiety.
Representativeness Heuristic
The representativeness heuristic (RH) is a mental shortcut that heavily relates to probabilistic thinking. It facilitates CT via two mechanisms: the conjunction fallacy (CF) and perception of pseudo-meaningful relationships between events. Both mechanisms involve overestimates or errors in thinking about probabilities of separate events. The relationship between RH and CT is moderated by NFC, specifically by the ability to fulfill one's NFC via cognitive strategies.
We would like to thank Professor Andrea Tracy for her assistance with and feedback on our literature review. We also want to express gratitude for our fellow peers in both sections of the Senior Seminar who have provided valuable critiques and peer reviews throughout the semester.
Need for closure (NFC) is characterized by a desire for concrete answers, especially in ambiguous situations (Marchlewska et al., 2018). People who have a high NFC are more likely to believe conspiracy theories because these theories provide somewhat coherent conceptions of the causes of events (Umam et al., 2018). Because a lack of information can result in maladaptive pseudo-epistemic coping, accurate information must be readily available (Heiss et al., 2021). Therefore, targeting communication strategies, particularly between those who share and receive information, is a practical and urgent solution. We seek to decrease an individual’s perception of intent to harm and reliance on pseudo-epistemic coping, thereby facilitating decreased endorsement of conspiracies (Greenburgh et al., 2019; Wiginton et al., 2020).
Religious fundamentalism has been found to correlate positively with both conspiracy thinking and NFC (Altabatabaei & Nguyen, 2007; Kossowska et al., 2018; Lowicki et al., 2022). One of our posts explains how high NFC triggers the search for simple and satisfying answers to uncertain events, which can entail religious or conspiratorial explanations. Locus of control (LOC), or one’s tendency to attribute life outcomes to external or internal factors, has also been studied in relation to religiosity and conspiracy theory endorsement. Our followers can learn more about this factor in Olagoke et al.’s (2020) research-verified LOC questionnaire in our Instagram Bio. Generally, higher external LOC correlates with greater conspiracy thinking (Abalakina-Paap et al., 2002), explained in another post. Finally, we will discuss how religiosity also relates positively to conspiracy theory endorsement as it can serve as another coping mechanism during uncertainty (Mancosu et al., 2017).
A common operational definition of the representativeness heuristic is the number of conjunction errors an individual makes (i.e., commitment to the conjunction fallacy) (Brotherton & French, 2014; Wabnegger et al., 2021). Thus, having people evaluate trios of conjunction statements via our Instagram survey will help them learn more about and avoid the fallacy. Conspiracy believers also tend to perceive relationships between separate, random events when there are none (Dagnall et al., 2017; Kovic & Kuechslin, 2018). Therefore, encouraging people to think more analytically and cautiously on this platform will hopefully reduce belief in conspiracy theories (Swami et al., 2014). Additionally, educating the population on how to find reliable sources will encourage them to seek out those sources and endorse fewer conspiracy theories (Heiss et al., 2021). This strategy is particularly important for those with high intolerance of uncertainty (IU), since these individuals are more prone to conspiracy thinking (Berenbaum et al., 2008; White, 2022). In educating people about IU, they will become more aware and cautious of the impacts of this trait.
Psychology Senior Seminar
Spring 2022
Thesis and Model
Audience Response
This Instagram was created with the goal of informing our audience about the mechanisms that lead to conspiracy thinking and ways to avoid this kind of thinking. We mostly target a younger population because these individuals begin to solidify their coping skills, their worldviews, and their information-processing mechanisms at this age. In using our platform, our audience will learn how to avoid maladaptive coping mechanisms, critique their information sources, and accurately communicate about what they learn in school or social media. We also hope that by educating our followers on how and why conspiracy thinking occurs, they may be better equipped to counter false information related to conspiracy theories and avoid endorsing harmful theories themselves.
Product: Format & Objectives