Epistemic trust, mentalizing and extremist attitudes in a German community sample

Introduction While extremist attitudes, here conspiracy mentality, antisemitic attitudes, and the ideological support of violence, are typically studied in political or sociological psychological contexts, their investigation in relation to clinical psychological concepts may offer additional insight with respect to underlying psychological mechanisms. In this study, we aimed to explore the relation between self-reported extremist attitudes and epistemic trust, mistrust, and credulity, as well as mentalizing. The different epistemic stances as well as difficulties in the ability to mentalize are assumed to represent non-pathological individual variations in psychological vulnerability and resilience. Methods This questionnaire study investigates the relationship between levels of epistemic trust, mistrust, and credulity, assessed via the Epistemic Trust, Mistrust and Credulity Questionnaire, mentalizing deficits assessed via the Mentalization Questionnaire and endorsement of extremist attitudes (antisemitic attitudes assessed via 2 items of the model questionnaire on right-wing extremism by the German Federal Agency for Civic Education, conspiracy mentality assessed via the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire, and violence supporting attitudes assessed via the Violent Extremist Attitudes Scale) in a German community sample (N = 566). Due to scarcity in empirical research on these concepts, we took an exploratory approach to investigate potential associations using structural equation modeling. Self-indicated presence of a mental disorder and participants` gender were integrated into the model. Results Epistemic mistrust and all extremist attitudes were positively related via mentalizing deficits; as was the marginally significant negative association between epistemic trust and conspiracy mentality. No other indirect effects of epistemic trust or credulity on extremist attitudes reached significance. Presence of a mental disorder was associated with epistemic credulity, epistemic mistrust, and mentalizing deficits, but not with extremist attitudes. Female gender was associated with higher epistemic trust and lower antisemitic attitudes as well as lower endorsement of violence supporting attitudes. Conclusion Exploratory findings should inspire future longitudinal or experimental research on the investigated constructs to identify whether they might be promising candidates to reduce extremist attitudes in the general population. Moreover, gender-specific mechanisms seem of relevance and need to be further explored.