Narcissistic susceptibility to conspiracy beliefs exaggerated by education, reduced by cognitive reflection
Date
2023
Authors
Cosgrove, T.J.
Murphy, C.P.
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Journal article
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Frontiers in Psychology, 2023; 14:1-10
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Conspiracy theories are alternate viewpoints of provided explanations;sensational stories revolving around small groups exerting control for nefariousreasons. Recent events and research have outlined myriad negative socialand personal outcomes for those who endorse them. Prior research suggestsseveral predictors of susceptibility to conspiracy theories, including narcissisticpersonality traits (grandiosity, need for uniqueness), cognitive processes (criticalthinking, confirmation bias) and lack of education. The aim of the current paperwas to explore how facets of narcissism predict susceptibility to conspiracytheories. It was expected that narcissism would be a positive predictor, buteducation and cognitive reflection would act as protective factors, reducing thiseffect. Study one utilized an international survey (N = 323) to investigate the roleof education as a protective tool in the relationship between narcissistic traits andconspiratorial beliefs.
Support was found for the hypotheses that individuals withhigher levels of grandiosity, vulnerable narcissism, a strive for uniqueness, and astrive for supremacy predicted higher levels of conspiracy endorsement. Highereducation and STEM education were associated with lower levels of conspiracyendorsement, however all significant moderations indicated that for narcissisticindividuals, education increased their likelihood of adopting conspiracy beliefs,contrary to expectation. To investigate this further, study two analyzed a largescale publicly available dataset (N = 51,404) to assess the relationship betweennarcissism, critical thinking skills (specifically cognitive reflection) and conspiracybeliefs pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. As expected, analysis foundnarcissism and poor cognitive reflection (intuitive thinking) as predictors ofconspiracy beliefs. Higher levels of cognitive reflection were found to be protective,moderating and reducing the impact of narcissism on endorsement of conspiracytheories. The findings suggest that cognitive reflection, but not education protectagainst narcissistic conspiracy belief. Moreover, that cognitive reflection may havea lessened effect against conspiracy theories adopted for social or ideologicalreasons. These findings improve understanding of both the role and limitationsof education/critical thinking skills as protective factors against conspiracy theoryendorsement.
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Copyright 2023 Cosgrove and Murphy. This is an open access article distributed under the terms ofthe Creative Commons Attribution License(CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication inthis journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use,distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)