People With Extreme Political Views Have Trouble Thinking About Their Own Thinking

[rangerrebew]

People With Extreme Political Views Have Trouble Thinking About Their Own Thinking
Your super liberal and super conservative relatives might all have one thing in common.
Popular Science |

    Sara Chodosh



It's important to doubt yourself sometimes.

Radical political views of all sorts seem to shape our lives to an almost unprecedented extent. But what attracts people to the fringes? A new study from researchers at University College London offers some insight into one characteristic of those who hold extreme beliefs—their metacognition, or ability to evaluate whether or not they might be wrong.

“It’s been known for some time now that in studies of people holding radical beliefs, that they tend to… express higher confidence in their beliefs than others,” says Steve Fleming, a UCL cognitive neuroscientist and one of the paper’s authors. “But it was unknown whether this was just a general sense of confidence in everything they believe, or whether it was reflective of a change in metacognition.”

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/people-with-extreme-political-views-have-trouble-thinking-about-their-own-thinking?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[Sanguine]

OK, first of all they've got it backwards.  People who have trouble thinking may have extreme views.  If they are fearful and feel that nothing they do can positively affect their lot in life, they tend to develop extreme views.  "The Man is holding me down", "It's because I'm not pretty enough", "Other people inherit their wealth", "vast right/left wing conspiracy", "white/brown/black privilege", etc.  Excuses as to why they are not able to succeed rather than attempting and risking failure.

And, secondly, this is much more prevalent nowdays, because "metacognition" aka "thinking skill" is actively discouraged in pretty much all walks of life, including schools, churches and the media.  And, for many people, that active discouragement worked very well.