Exploring Meta-Reasoning Propositional Confidence in Conspiratorial Beliefs and Socio-Cognitive Polarization

Conspiracy theories have pervaded human thought across time and cultures, often emerging during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, where they influenced public behaviors and attitudes, notably in vaccine hesitancy. This research explores the metacognitive foundations of conspiracy beliefs, particularly focusing on how individuals monitor and assess their problem-solving processes. We propose that conspiracy beliefs are linked to high propositional confidence-often unsupported by accurate reasoning. Two studies were conducted to investigate the potential relationship between meta-reasoning inaccuracies (i.e., prospective confidence judgments and commission errors) during problem solving and conspiracy beliefs. Across two studies, we examine metacognitive markers of this overconfidence. Study 1 analyzes archival data from George and Mielicki's (2023) to investigate how COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs are associated with initial judgments of solvability in solvable and unsolvable Compound Remote Associate (CRA) tasks. Study 2 examines the relationship between commission errors on Rebus puzzles and conspiracy beliefs, while also assessing Socio-Cognitive Polarization (SCP)-a construct encompassing ideological rigidity, intolerance of ambiguity, and xenophobia. Results show that SCP amplified the effects of commission errors on conspiracy beliefs, situating these cognitive patterns within socio-political contexts. These findings offer novel evidence that conspiracy beliefs are not merely a product of what people think, but how they think-underscoring the intertwined roles of flawed meta-reasoning and socio-political attitudes in sustaining conspiratorial worldviews.