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Van de Cruys S, Bervoets J, Gadsby S, Gijbels D, Poels K. Insight in the Conspiracist's Mind. PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW 2024; 28:302-324. [PMID: 37776304 DOI: 10.1177/10888683231203145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/02/2023]
Abstract
Academic AbstractThe 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.
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Acevedo EC, Uhler S, White KP, Al-Shawaf L. What Predicts Beneficial Outcomes in Psychedelic Use? A Quantitative Content Analysis of Psychedelic Health Outcomes. J Psychoactive Drugs 2024:1-10. [PMID: 38341606 DOI: 10.1080/02791072.2024.2314729] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2023] [Accepted: 12/19/2023] [Indexed: 02/12/2024]
Abstract
Interest in psychedelics and their possible therapeutic potential has been growing. Metaphysical belief theory asserts that these benefits stem from the adoption of comforting supernatural beliefs following a mystical experience. By contrast, predictive self-binding theory suggests that the beneficial outcomes of psychedelics are primarily driven by psychological insights. The present study tests these competing models of psychedelic benefits. We conducted a quantitative content analysis on unsolicited self-reports of psychedelic users available on Erowid.org, to examine the potential relations between psychological insight, ego dissolution, therapeutic intent, altered metaphysical belief, and enduring health outcomes. We randomly selected, coded, and analyzed two hundred forty psychedelic experience reports from the website. Path analysis using structural equation modeling showed that psychological insight, not metaphysical beliefs, uniquely predicted beneficial outcomes. Moreover, beneficial outcomes' positive relation to ego dissolution and therapeutic intent was fully mediated by psychological insight. These findings support the predictive self-binding model over the metaphysical belief model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elias C Acevedo
- Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
| | - Scott Uhler
- Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
| | - Kaitlyn P White
- Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
| | - Laith Al-Shawaf
- Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
- Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA
- Institute for Advanced Study, Toulouse, France
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Laukkonen RE, Webb M, Salvi C, Tangen JM, Slagter HA, Schooler JW. Insight and the selection of ideas. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2023; 153:105363. [PMID: 37598874 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105363] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2023] [Revised: 06/19/2023] [Accepted: 08/15/2023] [Indexed: 08/22/2023]
Abstract
Perhaps it is no accident that insight moments accompany some of humanity's most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Here we propose that feelings of insight play a central role in (heuristically) selecting an idea from the stream of consciousness by capturing attention and eliciting a sense of intuitive confidence permitting fast action under uncertainty. The mechanisms underlying this Eureka heuristic are explained within an active inference framework. First, implicit restructuring via Bayesian reduction leads to a higher-order prediction error (i.e., the content of insight). Second, dopaminergic precision-weighting of the prediction error accounts for the intuitive confidence, pleasure, and attentional capture (i.e., the feeling of insight). This insight as precision account is consistent with the phenomenology, accuracy, and neural unfolding of insight, as well as its effects on belief and decision-making. We conclude by reflecting on dangers of the Eureka Heuristic, including the arising and entrenchment of false beliefs and the vulnerability of insights under psychoactive substances and misinformation.
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Grimmer HJ, Tangen JM, Freydenzon A, Laukkonen RE. The illusion of insight: detailed warnings reduce but do not prevent false "Aha!" moments. Cogn Emot 2023; 37:329-338. [PMID: 36883217 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2023.2187352] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/09/2023]
Abstract
False "Aha!" moments can be elicited experimentally using the False Insight Anagram Task (FIAT), which combines semantic priming and visual similarity manipulations to lead participants into having "Aha!" moments for incorrect anagram solutions. In a preregistered experiment (N = 255), we tested whether warning participants and explaining to them exactly how they were being deceived, would reduce their susceptibility to false insights. We found that simple warnings did not reduce the incidence of false insights. On the other hand, participants who were given a detailed explanation of the methods used to deceive them experienced a small reduction in false insights compared to participants given no warning at all. Our findings suggest that the FIAT elicits a robust false insight effect that is hard to overcome, demonstrating the persuasive nature of false insights when the conditions are ripe for them.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hilary J Grimmer
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, Australia
| | - Jason M Tangen
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, Australia
| | - Anna Freydenzon
- Institute of Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, Australia
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Ammalainen A, Moroshkina N. Where Does Eureka Come From? The Effect of Unreportable Hints on the Phenomenology of Insight. J Intell 2022; 10:110. [PMID: 36412790 PMCID: PMC9703963 DOI: 10.3390/jintelligence10040110] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2022] [Revised: 11/07/2022] [Accepted: 11/17/2022] [Indexed: 06/24/2024] Open
Abstract
Insight interests researchers given its special cognitive mechanisms and phenomenology (an Aha! experience or Eureka moment). There is a considerable amount of research on the effect of hints on performance in insight problem solving. However, only a few studies address the effect of hints on the subjective experiences of solvers, and the picture their results provide is unclear. We analyze the effect of unreportable true and false hints on different dimensions of the Aha! experience (subjective suddenness, Aha! experience as an effect, and certainty). Using the processing fluency framework, we predict that true hints lead to more insights and stronger Aha! experience and certainty, while false hints lead to the opposite results due to the controlled inhibition of the inappropriate representation. The results showed that false hints decreased the chance of finding a correct solution. The true-hint condition did not lead to more correct solutions but made solutions feel sudden more often than the control condition. The ratings of the Aha! experience and certainty were higher for solutions obtained after true hints than after false hints. We obtained partial support for the effect of unreportable hints on "Eureka!" moments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Artur Ammalainen
- Laboratory for Cognitive Research, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, 119571 Moscow, Russia
| | - Nadezhda Moroshkina
- Institute for Cognitive Studies, Saint Petersburg State University, 199034 Saint Petersburg, Russia
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Skaar ØO, Reber R. Alone or together: The role of gender and social context prior to Aha‐experiences. Scand J Psychol 2022; 64:302-313. [PMID: 36326784 DOI: 10.1111/sjop.12883] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2021] [Revised: 07/04/2022] [Accepted: 10/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Prior research indicates that boys show more interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) than girls do. Given that Aha-experiences yield positive affect and increase interest, the question arises whether there are gender differences in Aha-experiences that could help explain the gender differences in interest. Derived from social role theory, we hypothesized that men report having Aha-experiences alone, whereas women report having Aha-experiences together with others. In a retrospective survey study comprising three independent samples (N = 899), we conducted chi-square analyses to explore the relationship of gender, social context (alone; not alone), domain, and situational interest. Across all participants, we found that men were more probably alone and women more probably together with others when they had an Aha-experience. More fine-grained analyses revealed that the effect was especially pronounced when the Aha-experience increased situational interest within STEM or the personal domain. The study suggests that social context played a different role in the occurrence of Aha-experiences in men and women. We discuss the implications of our findings for STEM instruction at school.
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Affiliation(s)
- Øystein O. Skaar
- Faculty of Education Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences Hamar Norway
| | - Rolf Reber
- Department of Psychology University of Oslo Oslo Norway
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Grimmer HJ, Laukkonen RE, Freydenzon A, von Hippel W, Tangen JM. Thinking style and psychosis proneness do not predict false insights. Conscious Cogn 2022; 104:103384. [PMID: 35933801 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2022.103384] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2022] [Revised: 07/13/2022] [Accepted: 07/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
The FIAT paradigm (Grimmer et al., 2021) is a novel method of eliciting 'Aha' moments for incorrect solutions to anagrams in the laboratory, i.e. false insights. There exist many documented reports of psychotic symptoms accompanying strong feelings of 'Aha!' (Feyaerts, Henriksen, Vanheule, Myin-Germeys, & Sass, 2021; Mishara, 2010; Tulver, Kaup, Laukkonen, & Aru, 2021), suggesting that the newly developed FIAT could reveal whether people who have more false insights are more prone to psychosis and delusional belief. To test this possibility, we recruited 200 participants to take an adapted version of the FIAT and complete measures of thinking style and psychosis proneness. We found no association between experimentally induced false insights and measures of Schizotypy, Need for Cognition, Jumping to Conclusions, Aberrant Salience, Faith in Intuition, or the Cognitive Reflection Task. We conclude that experiencing false insights might not be constrained to any particular type of person, but rather, may arise for anyone under the right circumstances.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Anna Freydenzon
- Institute of Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Australia
| | | | - Jason M Tangen
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Australia
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Laukkonen RE, Kaveladze BT, Protzko J, Tangen JM, von Hippel W, Schooler JW. Irrelevant insights make worldviews ring true. Sci Rep 2022; 12:2075. [PMID: 35136131 PMCID: PMC8826315 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-05923-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2021] [Accepted: 01/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Our basic beliefs about reality can be impossible to prove and yet we can feel a strong intuitive conviction about them, as exemplified by insights that imbue an idea with immediate certainty. Here we presented participants with worldview beliefs such as "people's core qualities are fixed" and simultaneously elicited an aha moment. In the first experiment (N = 3000, which included a direct replication), participants rated worldview beliefs as truer when they solved anagrams and also experienced aha moments. A second experiment (N = 1564) showed that the worldview statement and the aha moment must be perceived simultaneously for this 'insight misattribution' effect to occur. These results demonstrate that artificially induced aha moments can make worldview beliefs seem truer, possibly because humans partially rely on feelings of insight to appraise an idea's veracity. Feelings of insight are therefore not epiphenomenal and should be investigated for their effects on decisions, beliefs, and delusions.
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