Experts refer to these opinions as a product of “belief superiority.” In their 2018 paper published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers Michael Hall and Kaitlin Raimi defined it as the mindset of thinking your opinion is far superior to other people’s.
In their study, Hall and Raimi gathered participants who felt their beliefs on controversial topics such as wealth distribution and civil liberties were superior. The pair used multiple-choice quizzes as their gauge.
Hall and Raimi conducted five studies and found that their subjects with the highest belief superiority also had the widest disparity between their perceived and actual knowledge. At the same time, they still had a misguided notion that they were better informed than they were before undergoing the experiment.
Here’s what’s interesting, though: Hall and Raimi also discovered that feedback can deflate belief superiority. After participants received constructive criticism, they reduced their belief superiority and sought out more challenging information they may have previously neglected.
Confirmation bias also plays a significant role in influencing “hot takes.” As Ph.d researcher Rebecca Dolgin points out, talking to other people who share our beliefs leaves us more convinced that we are correct, even though it couldn’t be any further from the truth.
“When others disagree, we rationalize that we are seeing things clearly, and they are somehow ill-informed, biased, or illogical,” Dolgin stated.
It also doesn’t help that many people get their information from social media, regardless of the authenticity of the source. To put that in context, a 2024 survey by Pew Research Center found that 54% of American adults claim they “at least sometimes” use social media as their news source.
A more alarming statistic is that a third of Americans say they “regularly” gather their news from social media sites, with Instagram being the biggest source at 20%. TikTok comes in second place with 17%, followed by Twitter with 12%.
So, how do we avoid being the l*****c with the crazy, hot takes? Sociologist Dr. Tracy Brower says it all comes down to emotional regulation. She advises avoiding information that could make you unhappy or threaten your well-being, while challenging yourself with new information that isn’t tied to your beliefs.
“You can grow through seeking information regarding topics you’re less knowledgeable about or which are new to you,” Dr. Brower writes, adding that avoiding echo chambers created by algorithms is also necessary to broaden your view of the world.
