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

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Newman, Devora Lewandowsky, Stephan Mayo, Ruth
Copyright Year	2022
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.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC8761558&blobtype=pdf
ISSN	01918869
Journal	Personality and Individual Differences [Pers Individ Dif]
Volume Number	189
DOI	10.1016/j.paid.2022.111522
PubMed Central reference number	PMC8761558
PubMed reference number	35068637
e-ISSN	01918869
Language	English
Publisher	Elsevier Ltd.
Publisher Date	2022-01-17
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Subject Keyword	Distrust Alternative facts Shared reality COVID-19 Vaccine opposition
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Psychology