Insight in the Conspiracist’s Mind

Abstract

Academic Abstract The motto of the conspiracist, “Do your own research,” may seem ludicrous to scientists. Indeed, it is often dismissed as a mere rhetorical device that conspiracists use to give themselves the semblance of science. In this perspective paper, we explore the information-seeking activities (“research”) that conspiracists do engage in. Drawing on the experimental psychology of aha experiences, we explain how these activities, as well as the epistemic experiences that precede (curiosity) or follow (insight or “aha” experiences) them, may play a crucial role in the appeal and development of conspiracy beliefs. Aha moments have properties that can be exploited by conspiracy theories, such as the potential for false but seemingly grounded conclusions. Finally, we hypothesize that the need for autonomous epistemic agency and discovery is universal but increases as people experience more uncertainty and/or feel epistemically excluded in society, hence linking it to existing literature on explaining conspiracy theories. Public Abstract Recent events have made it painfully clear that conspiracy beliefs can tear deep rifts in society and that we still have not found an adequate, de-escalating response to this. To understand the appeal of conspiracy theories and find new, humanizing ways to talk about them, we propose in this perspective paper to start from the universal human need to autonomously make discoveries through personal knowledge-generating actions. Indeed, psychological research shows that the aha experiences that accompany subjective discoveries create confidence in and perceived ownership of ideas that may be exploited by conspiracy theories. We hypothesize that people experiencing more uncertainty and/or epistemic exclusion in society will especially feel the need to re-establish autonomous epistemic agency and discovery. While this explanation starts from shared human experiences and practices, it also illustrates the potential of those processes to lead to a narrowed world and ossified cognition.

Order and change in art: towards an active inference account of aesthetic experience

“…But even if, being curious, one expects to gain information through some actions, this is still anchored on the models or hypotheses one can formulate about the causes of sensory inputs. An aha experience may even have a self-sealing effect, in the sense that the closure reached implies that any further thoughts and explorations (epistemic acts) are terminated [85][86][87], at least with respect to the specific matter that started the epistemic arc.…”

Aesthetics and predictive processing: grounds and prospects of a fruitful encounter

“…At the same time, and by contrast, art and aesthetics could have something to say about those cases in which our self-evidencing goes awry. These include 'pathologies' of our individual and collective epistemic behaviour of particular social relevance such as confirmation bias, echo chambers and conspiracy theories, all of which are starting to be examined from a PP perspective [143,144]. However, they also include many psychopathologies such as schizophrenia, delusions, autism spectrum disorder, anxiety disorders, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and addiction, all of which are also increasingly conceptualized within a PP perspective as anomalies of some kind in exteroceptive, interoceptive or proprioceptive inference (see [47][48][49] for useful summaries and discussions).…”

Is it better to be happy or right? Examining the relative role of the pragmatic and epistemic imperatives in momentary affective evaluations.

“…A more nuanced possibility emphasizes the dynamics of emotional experiences relating to the process of uncertainty reduction (Noordewier & Breugelmans, 2013; Van de Cruys, 2017). According to this approach, any deviation from expectations (surprise) causes an initial adverse reaction, while only later, when people gain a better understanding of the outcome, their emotional reactions follow depending on the valence of the results.…”