In a piece I wrote for this blog back in April, "Critically Thinking About Conspiracy Theories and COVID-19," I discussed how conspiracy theories often come to the fore in light of catastrophes and events that challenge social order (Van Prooijen & Jostmann, 2013), such as the pandemic we’re currently facing. A conspiracy theory is a falsely derived belief that the ultimate cause of an event results from the plotting of multiple omnipresent and omnipotent actors, working together in pursuit of an often malevolent, unlawful, and secret goal (Bale, 2007; Mandick, 2007; Swami et al., 2014; Swami & Furnham, 2014).
Despite generally being more agreeable (Swami et al., 2011), conspiracy theorists often claim to be "skeptics" and to think critically; however, research suggests that belief in conspiracy theories is correlated with lower analytic thinking and lower open-mindedness (both of which are necessary for critical thinking), as well as higher scores on intuitive thinking (Swami et al., 2014)—the latter of which is in opposition to reflective judgment and critical thinking (Dwyer, 2017). Though skepticism is an important disposition towards critical thinking (Dwyer et al., 2016), it must be applied cumulatively to all sides of an argument and not just in a manner that rationalizes the confirmation of a bias—remember, open-mindedness is also an important disposition towards CT.
Let’s divert focus from belief in conspiracy theories for a moment—we’ll get back to that. First, let’s think about what critical thinking (CT) is and how we can measure it. CT is a metacognitive process consisting of a number of sub-skills and dispositions that, when applied through purposeful, self-regulatory, reflective judgment, increase the chances of producing a logical solution to a problem or a valid conclusion to an argument (Dwyer, 2017; Dwyer, Hogan & Stewart, 2014).
Though the skill aspect of CT is well researched, there is significantly less research focused on the dispositional aspect, which refers to an inclination, tendency, or willingness to perform a given CT skill (Dwyer, 2017; Facione, Facione & Giancarlo, 1997; Ku, 2009; Norris, 1992; Siegel, 1999; Valenzuela, Nieto & Saiz, 2011). To address this lack of research, colleagues and I (Dwyer et al., 2016) examined how students and educators conceptualize CT dispositions using interactive management (Warfield, 1994)—research which highlighted the value of consulting with both students and educators in the development of a consensus-based model of CT dispositions. Both groups identified and structured 12 dispositions important for CT, including inquisitiveness, open-mindedness, attentiveness, perseverance, and truth-seeking.
We used the findings from this research as a basis for developing a scale to assess disposition towards thinking, in light of another observation regarding the research literature: Though there are measures available that have been used to assess disposition towards thinking, they either fail to do so explicitly (e.g., not designed to measure disposition towards CT specifically: Need for Cognition Scale [Cacioppo & Petty, 1982; Petty, Cacioppo, & Kao, 1984] and Motivated Strategies towards Learning Questionnaire [Pintrich et al., 1991]) or require further consideration with respect to validity, reliability, and/or factor-structuring (e.g., the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory [Facione & Facione, 1992] and the Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale [Sosu, 2013]). So, in light of these considerations—as well as our own research on student-educator perspectives—we developed and evaluated a new measure of dispositions towards CT. Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses across two independent samples for factor structure identification, a six-factor, 21-item CT disposition scale emerged that, in addition to the disposition towards CT (in a cumulative sense), also assesses specific dispositions towards CT: reflection, attentiveness, open-mindedness, organization, perseverance, and intrinsic goal-orientation.
So, what’s that got to do with conspiracy theories? Well, in part of assessing whether the scale does what it is supposed to, we assessed its convergent validity with similar measures, indicating statistically significant relationships between "our" CT dispositions and other constructs and outcomes, including the need for cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982; Petty, Cacioppo, & Kao, 1984); motivated strategies for learning (Pintrich et al., 1991); and real-world outcomes of critical thinking (Butler, 2012; Butler et al., 2012), as well as its predictive validity, through which—in light of previous research (Swami et al., 2014)—we hypothesized it would share a negative relationship with belief in conspiracy theories (i.e., higher scores on CT dispositions would be correlated with lower scores on conspiracy theory beliefs and vice versa). Consistent with our hypotheses, results revealed that higher scores on disposition towards open-mindedness predicted lower scores on "control of information" conspiracy beliefs; higher scores on disposition towards perseverance predicted lower scores on both "government malfeasance" beliefs and "malevolent global conspiracy" beliefs; and higher scores on disposition towards attentiveness predicted lower scores on "extra-terrestrial cover-up" beliefs.
As addressed in one of my co-authors' recent blog posts here on Psychology Today (see Michael Hogan’s In One Lifespan), though more work is needed to further evaluate the factor structure and scale reliability of the newly developed Student-Educator Negotiated Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale (Quinn et al., 2020), the scale provides researchers and educators with a unique conceptualization and both a reasonably reliable and valid measure of CT dispositions, which may be useful in advancing basic and applied research in the area.
Moreover, results suggest that those with specific inclinations towards conducting CT are less likely to believe in specific types of conspiracy beliefs. Likewise, however, further research on the relationship between belief in conspiracy theories and CT disposition(s) is also required to help elaborate on extant interpretations of their relationship(s).