Cognitive Impairment Associated with Radical Political Beliefs

(A) Using factor analysis, we investigated the underlying factor structure of multiple questionnaires about political issues. Three latent factors were identified and labeled “political orientation,” “dogmatic intolerance,” and “authoritarianism” according to the pattern of individual item loadings. Item loadings for each question (questionnaires indicated by different colors) are presented. (B–D) To investigate the relation between these constructs, scores on the three factors were extracted for each individual. (B) We observed a quadratic relationship between political orientation and dogmatic intolerance, revealing that people on the extremes of the political spectrum are more rigid and dogmatic in their world views. (C) A linear relationship between political orientation and authoritarianism was observed, with people from the far right of the political spectrum showing more obedience to authorities and conventions. (D) Dogmatic intolerance and authoritarianism were positively correlated, indicating commonality between these two sub-components of radicalism.

Widening polarization about political, religious, and scientific issues threatens open societies, leading to entrenchment of beliefs, reduced mutual understanding, and a pervasive negativity surrounding the very idea of consensus. Such radicalization has been linked to systematic differences in the certainty with which people adhere to particular beliefs. However, the drivers of unjustified certainty in radicals are rarely considered from the perspective of models of metacognition, and it remains unknown whether radicals show alterations in confidence bias (a tendency to publicly espouse higher confidence), metacognitive sensitivity (insight into the correctness of one’s beliefs), or both Max Rollwage et al., Current Biology, Vol. 28, Iss. 24, Pgs. 4014-4021, Dec. 17, 2018

Metacognition: awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes, roughly, self-awareness.

Confidence bias (overconfidence effect): a bias observed as a person’s subjective confidence in his or her judgements being greater than the objective accuracy of those judgements, especially when confidence is relatively high; overconfidence is one example of a miscalibration of subjective probabilities.

Motivated reasoning: a powerful emotion-biased decision-making phenomenon; the term refers to the role of motivation in cognitive processes such as decision-making and attitude change in a number of situations, including cognitive dissonance reduction, e.g., in the face of discomforting information or logic.

The journal Current Biology published a paper, Metacognitive Failure as a Feature of Those Holding Radical Beliefs, with some evidence that individuals who hold radical beliefs tend to lack self-awareness relative to others. This mindset was associated with higher confidence in correct and incorrect choices, and a reduced tendency to change levels of confidence in the face of new but contrary information.

The researchers pointed out that multiple cognitive effects could be going on that would account for the observed opinionation and resistance to change among radicals. Influences the researchers tried to dissect included motivated reasoning, confidence bias, and metacognition:

An unjustified certainty in one’s beliefs is a characteristic common to those espousing radical beliefs, and such overconfidence is observed for both political and non-political issues, implying a general cognitive bias in radicals. However, the underpinnings of radicals’ distorted confidence estimates remain unknown. In particular, one-shot measures of the discrepancy between performance and confidence are unable to disentangle the contributions of confidence bias (changes in an overall belief about performance, which may be affected by optimism and mood) from changes in metacognitive sensitivity (an ability to distinguish accurate from inaccurate performance). This distinction may be particularly important as changes in metacognitive sensitivity may account for radicals’ reluctance to change their mind in the face of new evidence.

This research does not shed light on the direction cause and effect. Commenting on the paper, Steven Novella writes:

What this study cannot tell us about is the arrow of cause and effect. One possibility is that those who lack the metacognitive ability to properly assess and correct their own confidence levels will tend to fall into more extreme views. Their confidence will allow them to more easily brush off dissenting opinions and information, more nuanced and moderate narratives, and the consensus of opinion.

At the same time I find it plausible that those who become radicalized into extreme political views may adopt overconfidence and stubbornness as a motivated reasoning strategy, in order to maintain their views, which they hold for emotional and identity reasons. This may become more of a general cognitive style that they employ, rather than being limited to just their radical views.

The results described here are asserted to come from the first attempt to tease cognitive processes apart to determine the cognitive and social sources of radicalism. Because of that, the research needs to be replicated and expanded to generate confidence in the results and conclusions. It is reasonable to think that multiple influences lead to radicalization including life experiences, personality, self and social identity, etc.

On replication of this research, it may turn out that a major source of radicalization, maybe the most important source, is impaired metacognition, as the researchers propose. In that case, there is a large body of research and real world experience with methods to teach enhanced metacognitive skill. The education community is fully aware of the usefulness of metacognition in education.

One reader of the 2009 Handbook of Metacognition in Education wrote this in his forward to the handbook: “This handbook goes a long way toward capturing the state of the science and the art of the study of metacognition. It reveals great strides in the sophistication and precision with which metacognition can be conceptualized, assessed, and developed [and] covers the gamut, including research and development on metacognition across a wide variety of subject-matter areas, as well as in more abstract issues of theory and measurement . . . . It is truly a landmark work.”

Maybe there is some hope for deradicalization of radicals and prevention of radicalization in minds susceptible to it. Of course, that begs the question of whether radical beliefs are usually more harmful than beneficial. There appears to be at least some research on that point.[1] For at least some uninformed people, ‘common sense’ might suggest radicalism is generally not a good thing.

Footnote:
1. From the article, Radical Beliefs and Violent Actions Are Not Synonymous: How to Place the Key Disjuncture Between Attitudes and Behaviors at the Heart of Our Research into Political Violence: This article develops and elaborates on three core points. First, as with research into other social science themes, it is argued that it is necessary to apply the logic of correlation and causality to the study of political violence. Second, it highlights the critical disjuncture between attitudes and behaviors. Many or most individuals who support the use of political violence remain on the sidelines, including those who sympathize with insurgents in Afghanistan (reportedly 29 percent in 2011), and those supportive of “suicide attacks” in the Palestinian Territories (reportedly reaching 66 percent in 2005). Conversely, those responsible for such behaviors are not necessarily supportive of the ostensible political aims. Third, it is argued that the motives that drive these attitudes and behaviors are often (or, some would argue, always) distinct. While the former are motivated by collective grievances, there is substantial case study evidence that the latter are commonly driven by economic (e.g., payments for the emplacement of improvised explosive devices), security-based (i.e., coercion) and sociopsychological (e.g., adventure, status, and vengeance) incentives. Thus, it is necessary for the research community to treat attitudes and behaviors as two separate, albeit interrelated, lines of inquiry.

B&B orig: 12/21/18