Believing in nothing and believing in everything: The underlying cognitive paradox of anti-COVID-19 vaccine attitudes

Abstract

A major reason why some people oppose the COVID-19 vaccine is the influence of misinformation. This study suggests that the cognitive paradox of simultaneously believing known facts less and new, “alternative facts” more is the outcome of a distrust mindset, characterized by spontaneous consideration of alternatives, including misinformation. We captured this paradox and its correlates in a scale that measures individuals' ability to distinguish between the truth value of well-established facts (“Earth rotates eastward around its own axis, completing a full rotation once in about 24 h”) and baseless “alternative facts” (“Earth can change its rotation direction and flip its axis, and we will never notice it”). Assuming that an anti-COVID-19 vaccine attitude arises from a chronically distrusting mindset, we sampled participants on Prolific who were pre-screened for their COVID-19 vaccine attitude based on earlier responses. We found that people who rejected COVID-19 vaccines believed well-established facts less, and “alternative facts” more, compared to supporters of the vaccine. Less discernment between truths and falsehoods was correlated with less intellectual humility, more distrust and greater reliance on one's intuition. This observed thought pattern offers insights into theoretical understanding of the antecedents of belief in “alternative facts” and conspiracy theories.

Everything causes cancer? Beliefs and attitudes towards cancer prevention among anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, and reptilian conspiracists: online cross sectional survey

“…25 We could not estimate whether the prevalence of flat earthers or reptilian conspiracy believers in our sample is comparable to that in the Spanish population because, to our knowledge, no estimates are available for comparison. Assuming that a lower knowledge of comparison with previous studies A cognitive paradox has been observed among people who reject covid-19 vaccines-they generally believe less in a wide range of well established facts and more in fake statements than do vaccine supporters 26 ; this is consistent with our results. Our results on the overall endorsement of causes of cancer are mostly in agreement with the previous literature (supplementary figure A).…”

Does deliberation decrease belief in conspiracies?

“…This is supported by studies showing that deliberation is associated with improved ability to correctly solve wide range of classical reasoning and decision making tasks (i.e., tasks, in which there is a logically or mathematically correct answer; Kahneman, 2011;Stanovich & West, 2000;Toplak et al, 2011). Increased deliberation is also associated with the ability to correctly distinguish true from "fake news" headlines (Bago, Rand, et al, 2020a;Pennycook & Rand, 2019b) and to distinguish "alternate facts" from true facts (Newman et al, 2022).…”

Investigating the Heterogeneity of Misperceptions: A Latent Profile Analysis of COVID-19 Beliefs and Their Consequences for Information-Seeking

“…Alternatively, individuals may adopt a critical stance against mainstream information while being attracted to various alternative narratives—including misinformation and conspiracy claims. Newman et al (2022) found evidence of this so-called “distrust mindset” among individuals that rejected COVID-19 vaccines. Those holding a distrust mindset demonstrated a smaller gap in discernment between beliefs in accurate and inaccurate information.…”