Petrović Marija B, Žeželj Iris
LIRA lab, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia.
Psychol Rep. 2024 Sep 10:332941241280870. doi: 10.1177/00332941241280870.
Despite assumptions that people strive for consistency between their beliefs, endorsement of mutually incompatible ones is not rare - a tendency we have previously labelled doublethink, by borrowing from Orwell. In an attempt to understand the nature of doublethink and the underlying mechanism that enables incompatible beliefs to coexist, we conducted two preregistered studies (total = 691). To do so, in Study 1, we first explored how doublethink relates to (1) thinking styles (rational/intuitive, actively open-minded thinking, and need for cognitive closure), (2) a set of irrational beliefs (magical health, conspiratorial, superstitious, and paranormal beliefs) and (3) its predictiveness for questionable health practices (non-adherence to medical recommendations and use of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine). We then additionally expanded the set of health behaviors in Study 2, and related doublethink to trust in two epistemic authorities - science and the wisdom of the common man. Finally, in both studies, we explored whether those prone to inconsistent beliefs are also more likely to simultaneously rely on conventional and alternative medicine, despite their apparent incompatibility. While doublethink was positively related to need for cognitive closure and different irrational beliefs that easily incorporate contradictions, as well as negatively to actively open-minded thinking, we did not find it to be predictive of the use of non-evidence-based medicine nor of its simultaneous use with official medicine. It seems that this novel construct can be best understood as a feature of the cognitive system that allows incompatible claims to enter it. However, once beliefs are within the system, they are compartmentalized, without any cross-referencing between them. This is further reflected in non-evidence-based beliefs persisting within the belief system, irrespective of their content.
尽管人们普遍认为会努力使自己的信念保持一致，但认同相互矛盾的信念并不罕见——我们之前借鉴奥威尔的说法，将这种倾向称为“双重思想”。为了理解双重思想的本质以及使相互矛盾的信念得以共存的潜在机制，我们进行了两项预先注册的研究（共计691人）。为此，在研究1中，我们首先探讨了双重思想与以下方面的关系：（1）思维方式（理性/直觉、积极开放的思维以及认知闭合需求），（2）一系列非理性信念（神奇健康观、阴谋论、迷信和超自然信念），以及（3）其对可疑健康行为（不遵守医疗建议以及使用传统、补充和替代医学）的预测性。然后在研究2中，我们进一步扩展了健康行为的范围，并将双重思想与对两个认知权威——科学和普通人的智慧——的信任联系起来。最后，在两项研究中，我们都探讨了那些容易持有不一致信念的人是否也更有可能同时依赖传统医学和替代医学，尽管它们明显不相容。虽然双重思想与认知闭合需求以及容易包含矛盾的不同非理性信念呈正相关，与积极开放的思维呈负相关，但我们并未发现它能预测非循证医学的使用或其与官方医学的同时使用。似乎这种新构建的概念可以最好地理解为认知系统的一种特征，它允许相互矛盾的主张进入其中。然而，一旦信念进入该系统，它们就会被区分开来，彼此之间没有任何交叉参照。这在信念系统中持续存在的非循证信念中进一步得到体现，无论其内容如何。
