Misplaced certainty and simple thinking

Research has mostly approached certainty as a universal remedy for uncertainty. Going beyond the dichotomy of certainty-uncertainty, five studies examined misplaced (unsubstantiated) certainty in relation to people's thinking in a simple way, namely, seeking what is easy to process and well-defined. Misplaced certainty predicted a preference for comparatively simpler speech (Study 1), simpler paintings (Kitsch; Study 2), and simpler evaluations of the world and of other people (Study 3). When experimentally induced, misplaced certainty fostered simpler evaluations of the world than well-placed (substantiated) certainty (Studies 4–5) and well-placed and misplaced uncertainty (Study 5). Misplaced certainty also fostered more epistemic threat than other epistemic structures. Epistemic threat, in turn, predicted simpler thinking. These findings suggest that when certainty is misplaced and thus threatening, it may preclude intellectual depth and sophistication.