epistemically suspect beliefs
Definition
Epistemically suspect beliefs refers to claims that contradict substantial evidence and consensus among scientists and institutions, including unverified conspiracies, fake news, and pseudoscience. Belief in such claims is associated with negative societal outcomes including heightened discrimination, lower civic engagement, reduced public health compliance, and weakened social cohesion. Rather than stemming primarily from cognitive laziness or low effort, epistemically suspect beliefs may arise from different perceptions about what evidence is reliable, with believers adopting alternative epistemological frameworks that undervalue conventional markers of evidence quality (such as expert credentials and consistency) while overvaluing self-generated justifications and subjective assumptions.
Sources: Robson et al. (2024)
Related Terms
Applications
Epistemically Suspect Beliefs and Reasoning About Evidence
Believers and non-believers of epistemically suspect claims differ systematically in how they evaluate and justify their assessments of evidence quality. Fringe believers provide significantly fewer normative justifications based on conventional indicators of expertise and evidence quality, while relying more on self-generated justifications that substitute subjective assumptions for objective evidence presented to them.
Sources: Robson et al. (2024)
Epistemically Suspect Beliefs and Cognitive Effort
The relationship between epistemically suspect beliefs and cognitive effort is inconsistent across contexts, with mixed evidence for the claim that believers are simply lazy thinkers. Believers show reduced effort in certain reasoning tasks, but this reduction does not replicate consistently across different evidence evaluation scenarios.
Sources: Robson et al. (2024)
