Meta-beliefs are second-order beliefs—that is, beliefs about beliefs. They concern fundamental questions about how beliefs ought to be formed, what should constitute evidence, and when and how beliefs should be revised. Examples include: whether one should change one's beliefs when encountering contradictory evidence, whether loyalty to one's principles is more important than openness to new information, and whether the testimony of in-group members should be weighted more heavily than out-group members.
Scope and significance
Meta-beliefs differ fundamentally from first-order beliefs about specific claims or facts. A person can believe both that "climate change is not real" and that "beliefs should always change according to evidence"—these are logically compatible (if mistaken about the evidence). Meta-beliefs are important because they shape how individuals engage with evidence across multiple domains (conspiracies, science, politics, religion, etc.), making them core to understanding susceptibility to misinformation.
Meta-beliefs are theorized to be influenced by:
- Political ideology: Liberals and conservatives appear to weight meta-beliefs differently; for instance, conservatives may weight group loyalty and tradition more heavily in their meta-beliefs, leading to differential application of evidence-based reasoning across ideological lines.
- Cognitive sophistication: Individuals with higher analytic thinking and cognitive reflection may hold meta-beliefs that explicitly endorse evidence-based reasoning, though this does not guarantee they apply these beliefs consistently across all domains.
- Domain: The same person may hold different meta-beliefs for different belief domains—e.g., "science claims must change with evidence" but "religious claims are not subject to evidence."
Key papers
- Pennycook et al. (2020) — On the belief that beliefs should change according to evidence — Develops the Actively Open-minded Thinking about Evidence (AOT-E) scale to measure meta-beliefs about evidence; shows AOT-E is a strong and broad predictor of skepticism toward conspiracies, paranormal claims, and religion, but the relationship is dramatically moderated by political ideology, with far stronger effects for Democrats than Republicans.
Related topics
- belief-formation — the process by which beliefs are acquired and updated
- evidence-evaluation — how people assess and weigh evidence
- motivated-reasoning — the tendency to process evidence in ways that protect prior beliefs or group identity
- political-psychology — how political ideology shapes cognition and reasoning