Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Elites can be differentiated from non-elites by their status-enhancing attributes: their accomplishments, expertise, and group memberships. Elitism is the belief that elites deserve epistemic deference because they better understand the workings of the world. Psychological elitism posits the existence of a class of elites who possess specialized knowledge of subconscious (motivational and cognitive) drivers of human judgment that is beyond the ken of non-elites. This article challenges whether psychological elites deserve deference. The central problem is the elusiveness of ground-truth standards for determining the true drivers of judgments. To warrant deference, psychological elites must demonstrate that their reasoning operates free of the same subconscious distortions ascribed to non-elites. Absent such demonstrations, it is fair game—under the very theories that psychological elites endorse—to question the competence of psychological elites to second-guess the true reasons underlying the views of non-elites.
Source: Theory and Society
Authors: Gregory Mitchell, Philip E. Tetlock
Institutions: University of Virginia, University of Pennsylvania
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,890
OpenAlex ID: W4415129146