Unwarranted Beliefs, Desperation, and Control: An Exploratory Study

Research into paranormal, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theory beliefs has found an underlying relationship between the three types of beliefs, those who maintain beliefs in one category type tend to also hold beliefs in the other two (Lobato, Mendoza, Sims, & Chin, 2014). These beliefs, when coalesced, are typically referred to as epistemically unwarranted beliefs, or beliefs not grounded in reliable reason or credible data (Dyer & Hall, 2018). Studies involving supernatural beliefs have also uncovered a relationship between the use of superstitious behaviors and those with an external locus of control (i.e. no control over events in one’s life; Fluke, Webster, & Saucier, 2014). The negative emotion of desperation, a feeling of distress followed by an urgent need for relief, typically occurs in environments with little to no control (Garlow et al., 2008). This exploratory study is an attempt to investigate the possible relationships between epistemically unwarranted beliefs, the emotion of desperation, and external locus of control. It was predicted that those with high desperation would also hold more epistemically unwarranted beliefs and maintain a high external locus of control. Though data is still being collected, preliminary analyses and results will be shown