2018 — Rationalist.org & Evrim Ağacı content
People with extreme political views may have difficulty thinking clearly. You might have acquaintances who are excessively liberal and excessively conservative in common. All forms of radical political views have an impact on our lives that we might not anticipate. So what can drive people to defend an idea so strongly? New research from University College London may help us understand the metacognition and judgment of what might be right or wrong in people with extreme beliefs on a subject. “For some time now, studies of people with radical beliefs have shown that their confidence in those beliefs is much higher than in normal people,” said Steve Fleming, a UCL cognitive neuroscientist and one of the authors of the paper. “However, we don’t know if this confidence, which can be general, is actually a reflection of a change in their metacognition,” he added. He and his colleagues decided to remove partisanship from the equation to arrive at the answer. They asked participants a question that required an objective answer, one that did not rely on personal values. In the first sample, they examined two different groups of people: 381, and in the second sample, to confirm the results, 417. Participants in the first sample were given a questionnaire testing the conservatism or liberality of their political beliefs. Radicalism exists at both ends of the spectrum; individuals at either end are considered radical. After the questionnaire, the first group was given a simple test. They looked at two different sets of points and determined which set had more points. Then they rated how confident they were in their choices. In this exercise, people with radical political views gave almost the same answers as participants with moderate views. However, Fleming observed that radicals did not tend to rate their confidence in their decisions low after making wrong choices. Unlike political debates that usually don't have a right or wrong answer, one of the sets of points undoubtedly had more points. However, regardless of whether there was an objective answer, radicals rarely questioned whether their opinions were wrong. This finding, reinforced by the second sample, suggests that metacognition plays a role in shaping the beliefs of radicals. In other words, they haven't developed the ability to question their own thoughts like moderate individuals. According to Fleming, it's known that radical beliefs help shape metacognition, or metacognition creates radical beliefs, and this is still something his team is trying to figure out. However, he says their work already has the potential to create social consequences. As Fleming wrote in the email, there is a small but growing study that can contribute to people acquiring better metacognitive skills. This could enable individuals to get along better and make joint decisions more easily. According to the researchers, partisanship in political, religious, and scientific issues threatens societies by causing opposition to beliefs and making mutual understanding and consensus more difficult. Understanding the role metacognition plays in the formation of partisanship can also help us to avoid it. Translation: Ayşe Ege Palaz Editor: Ögetay Kayalı
• Popsci.com, “People with extreme political views have trouble thinking about their own thinking” < https://www.popsci.com/radical-politics-metacognition/ >
Originally published on Medium on April 24, 2023. English translation of “Radikal Görüşler Düşünebilme Yetisini Etkiliyor”.