‘Youniversalism’ measures growing reliance on personal truth

It has often been suggested that we now live in a “post-truth” world. People increasingly rely on their own feelings as a yardstick for what is true. Psychologists at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have now developed the ‘Youniversalism’ scale, to allow them to measure people’s belief in subjective and experiential truths.

When emotions and personal beliefs outweigh facts and expertise, it makes it harder to recognise and correct disinformation. ‘That can have serious consequences,’ says Bastiaan Rutjens psychologist at the UvA and one of the researchers involved. ‘For example, people could negatively impact their health by following unfounded medical advice, such as we see increasingly on social media.’

Researchers call this way of thinking “intuitive epistemology”: the idea that you can sense what is true and that everyone’s truth is equally valid. ‘This concept has been described before in the humanities, by Wouter Hanegraaff among others, but until now there was no good way to measure it,’ says Rutjens.

The new term 'Universalism'

By combining ‘You’ and ‘Universalism’ the new term encompasses the idea that the individual sees themselves as central in constructing and explaining the world around them. The scale has been tested on more than 1,500 people.

Two beliefs: ‘Truth is something you feel’ and ‘Truth is relative’

The Youniversalism scale measures two types of beliefs:

1. Truth is experiential:
   People score high here if they can relate to statements such as ‘I trust my gut feeling to know what is true’ or ‘I can usually feel whether a claim is correct, even if I cannot explain why’.
2. Truth is subjective:
   This concerns the idea that truth is relative and personal. Examples are statements such as: ‘What is true depends on the context’ and ‘The truth comes from within’.

'These days, we’re seeing changes in what people believe and above all, in how they determine what is true. This scale allows us to measure that,’ said Rutjens.

Spiritual and sceptical about science

It is also important to understand how these ways of thinking relate to other societal developments. ‘In addition to the growing emphasis on feelings, more and more people call themselves “spiritual but not religious”’, says Rutjens. ‘Spiritual people often say that truth can be found by looking inward or through personal experience.’

The more people tend to view themselves as ‘spiritual’, the higher they score they on the Youniversalism scale and the lower they score on trust in science. At the same time, this group shows lower levels of trust in science. ‘That points to greater scepticism towards scientific findings,’ says Rutjens.

Consequences of disinformation

According to the researchers, Youniversalism helps explain why some people stubbornly cling to ideas that contradict the facts but ‘make sense’ to them, such as conspiracy theories surrounding the coronavirus or drinking raw milk for health reasons.

‘Those who strongly believe that truth comes from their own feelings will be less inclined to be convinced by data, experts or official sources,’ says Rutjens.

The scale could be of help to, for example, policymakers, doctors or science communicators, allowing them to better assess which groups rely primarily on intuition and which arguments might have more effect on them. ‘If we knew this, we could present scientific information differently,’ says Rutjens. ‘For example, less in terms of “dry facts” and more through stories and personal experiences.’