Rutgers: Bizarre COVID-19 Pandemic Beliefs Linked to Stress
Rutgers: Bizarre COVID-19 Pandemic Beliefs Linked to Stress
The fact that this study includes a “Fauci-Trump Index” should tell you everything you need to know.
The subsidized gaslighting of Covid skeptics continues with a new Rutgers study entitled, Fevered Reasoning: How Heightened Distress and Lowered Resources Relate to COVID-19 Beliefs.
Read the entire study if you want to read a comprehensive case study on the impacts of confirmation bias in science. At some points (i.e. the Fauci-Trump index, the conclusion that sites Yuval Harari) it feels like a parody.
As Americans look back on the fourth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, new research from Rutgers University–Newark sheds light on why some people succumb to conspiracy theories and bogus beliefs and others don't.
Consider the sentiment that inspired the study design.
In the midst of the 2020 pandemic, Harber and Vila wanted to know why wildly erroneous beliefs, unfounded suspicions and rejection of scientific information and public health advice were so rampant.
“Why were some people denying legitimate facts that could help them cope with this deadly pandemic?” they asked.
The presumption that people are “denying legitimate facts” should be the first clue.
Presumptions all the way down
It’s clear from the start that this study is making a case rather than asking a question in earnest. And the case they’re making is that COVID skepticism and non-compliance is essentially a psychological problem.
This research was designed to show that epistemic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and response to collective crises in general, are shaped by distress (threat specific and general) and by psychosocial resources.
The abstract begins:
COVID-19 spawned many bogus beliefs (e.g., that it could be treated by ingesting household cleaners) and induced resistance to established facts (e.g., that it could be managed by vaccines). We tested whether transitory distress and insufficient psychosocial resources explain these maladaptive perspectives.
So, the first “established fact” is that COVID-19 could be managed by vaccines.
Was it though? Is it really a “maladaptive perspective” to observe that vaccines did NOT manage COVID-19?
COVID-19 spawned a flood of bogus beliefs. Some were relatively innocuous, such as that the disease arrived via asteroid or that it could be treated by breathing through a hair blower. Some were sinister, attributing the illness to shadowy groups seeking wealth or power. And some beliefs were dangerous, such as that COVID-19 could be cured by ingesting household cleaners. Compounding the problem of bogus beliefs was resistance to facts, such as refuting the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. Collectively, these unfounded beliefs and factual denialism constituted an “infodemic” that distracted people from earnest science, weakened their compliance with medical guidelines, and aggravated social divisions.
Why do people adopt beliefs that range from the whimsical to the lethal, why do they resist potentially life-saving information, and how can such tendencies be checked? (emphasis mine)
This false dichotomy is typical. The selected examples of “bogus beliefs” are designed to sound ridiculous and they fail to represent the legitimate concerns of people who did not comply with medical guidelines. This makes it very easy to equate non-compliance with “factual denialism.”
Study 1
The paper actually involve two studies. The first involved 350 participants, paid $0.75 for approximately 13 minutes of effort, minus 68 people who “were excluded for failing attention checks, reporting dishonest responses, duplicate IP address, or completing the study in less than 5 minutes.” (I always want to know more about the exclusions.)
The study was conducted in Spring 2020, when Donald Trump was the US president.
Facts in the Spring of 2020??
The subjects were given a “Covid Beliefs Survey” that is not included in the paper. Instead, the authors provide selected “sample bogus beliefs.” Again, this allows them to choose the most extreme examples of beliefs to frame a narrative. (But try to imagine what might have been on that survey in the spring of 2020… we need to find that survey…)
We never get an opportunity to review the data from those surveys, which is unfortunate, because I’d really like to get a sense of what people were thinking then.
Participants were also asked to choose between Fauce and Trump…
Fauci vs. Trump Regarding Hydroxychloroquine — Two items, separate from the COVID Beliefs Survey, asked whether participants agreed with 1) then-President Trump’s endorsement of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment9 or 2) with cautions about this drug expressed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the then director of NIH/NIAID. A difference score, “Fauci – Trump”, was created to reflect preference for scientifically-informed over politically-motivated judgments of this drug.
CDC compliance helped determine whether participants accepted “COVID-related facts…
CDC Compliance — Five items addressed whether participants were following Centers for Disease Control (CDC) COV ID-19 recommendations, including hand washing, social distancing, and limited visits to public spaces. CDC compliance would reflect acceptance of COVID-related facts, and implicate efforts to reduce risks to self and others.
Among their observations:
Bogus beliefs were negatively related to CDC compliance and were positively related to survivalism; factual beliefs were positively related to CDC compliance and were negatively related to survivalism. Overall, these correlations indicate two distinct epistemic postures; one favoring confabulations, denialism, and “doomsday prepping” (e.g., stockpiling materiel and readying for self-sufficiency; Smith & Thomas, 2021); the other embracing factual information, resisting fabrication, and favoring collective coping.
Study 2
Study 2 included 400 participants, recruited on Amazon Mechanical Turk (“MTurk”), minus 97 people who were excluded for the same parameters as Study 1.
Study 2 had three goals: Reconfirm the associations between distress, beliefs, and behavior demonstrated in Study 1; demonstrate that resources are negatively related to bogus beliefs and survivalism, and are positively related to factual beliefs and CDC compliance, and; show that the associations between resources and beliefs, and between resources and behavior, are themselves mediated by distress. Study 2 tested these predicted resources → distress → beliefs paths using mediational models that simultaneously assessed the contributions of COVID related distress and general distress.
Essentially, the study is designed to frame skepticism and non-compliance as a psychological disorder.
From the general discussion:
In late summer, 2021, when COVID-19 cases resurged in the United States, vaccination rates sharply declined (Lopez, June 2, 2021). This was not due to a shortage of vaccines or facilities. It was because of beliefs that the vaccines were unsafe or unnecessary, or that they were tainted by cynical motives or sinister designs (Frankovic, May 2021). What made this wall of bogus beliefs and denialism so impenetrable, and how could it be breached? We employed the Resources and Perception Model (RPM: Harber et al., 2011) to answer these questions. According to RPM, resources lead to more accurate perceptions and judgments of disturbing things by reducing the distress that disturbing things arouse. Because bogus beliefs and denialism regarding COVID-19 can be defensive responses to threats, they, too, should be explained by RPM. Our research largely supports these predictions.
Fauci-Trump Index
The “Fauci – Trump” metric gauged confidence in medical advice delivered by a medical expert (then CDC director Anthony Fauci) versus an ideological leader (then President Donald Trump). Both studies showed that, per RPM, Fauci garnered more credence relative to Trump when distress was low and when resources were high. However, the Fauci – Trump metric might not only reflect epistemic orientation, but also partisan loyalties or differential preferences for Fauci and Trump as persons. Indeed, the associations between the Fauci-Trump index and distress and resources became either very weak or non-significant after controlling for ideology.
People who follow CDC guidelines are less likely to contract the illness. Whole communities that do so can contain the pandemic. This research indicates that these desired outcomes were impeded by distress but were promoted by psychosocial resources.
Their Conclusion
According to historian Yuval Harari, humanity’s defining adaptation is the ability to construct meaningful narratives, which link people and ideas across distances and over generations (Harari, 2015). However, stabilizing social narratives can be undermined by major upheavals such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When this happens “Man’s Search for Meaning” (cf., Frankl, 1985), can become a mad scramble, where simplifying, empowering, but false beliefs are clutched, while complex, evolving, and sometimes disturbing facts are rejected.
The present research confirms these tendencies. People with greater distress were more drawn to COVID-19 bogus beliefs. Those with personal distress (but not COVID-related distress) were more prone to reject valid information. It may be tempting to regard such people as in some way deficient or in need of more information more ardently conveyed. Yet the present research showed that distress was associated with bogus beliefs even after controlling for demographics, ideology, and other attributes. And in any case, being told, “you are wrong” does not often shift viewpoints.
Our findings indicate that lack of resources, rather than compromised dispositions, determined COVID-19 beliefs. People with more hope, optimism, self-esteem, social support, and purpose were less susceptive to bogus beliefs and more accepting of valid information. Resources may have had these epistemic benefits by reducing the distress that can make bogus beliefs appealing. The negative relations between resources and bogus beliefs, and between resources and factual denialism suggest ways to address the epistemic fallout that disasters create: Provide people with a unifying purpose, protect their self-worth, and offer them a non-partisan sense of belonging.
Rutgers, your psy op is showing.
Excellent critique.
Also concerning is how gun ownership is woven into this narrative. "The distress affecting COVID related beliefs might also affect COVID related behavior. The present research tested if this was so by examining compliance with Centers for Disease Control (CDC) COVID prevention guidelines and engagement in survivalist strategies (e.g., obtaining firearms, locating escape routes to remote locations). CDC compliance reflects confidence in governmental authority, trust in science based directives, and faith in collective action. Survivalism reflects wariness towards governmental institutions and science, and loyalty to small, ideological groups . We therefore expected that distress would be related to increased survivalism and reduced CDC compliance among our US sample."