A new measure of psychological misconceptions: Relations with academic background, critical thinking, and acceptance of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims

Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking

“…Bensley et al (2014) suggested that students do not have the critical thinking skills or a skeptical attitude necessary to verify facts in their daily life, and that exposing students to critical thinking will increase these traits. As a result, courses that simultaneously teach critical thinking and directly refute misinformation and myths are highly successful at lowering belief in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects (Guzzetti 2000;Kowalski and Taylor 2009;Braasch et al 2013;Bensley et al 2014). Teaching critical thinking skills provides students with the tools necessary to question and investigate claims in relation to known facts whereas direct refutation of unsubstantiated subjects gives students a model of how to evaluate and confront false claims.…”

“…It should be noted that although there was a decrease in belief in the alternative medicine/detox subcategory, that category did not score well for Cronbach's alpha reliability and should therefore be considered with caution. Previous studies have also found that exposing students to critical thinking methods and correcting misconceptions about science can lead to decreased belief in non-empirical subjects such as conspiracy theories, paranormal subjects, and pseudoscience (Bensley et al 2014). For example, belief in conspiracy theories (Swami et al 2014) and paranormal subjects (Aarnio and Lindeman 2005) was found to be negatively associated with thinking styles that included critical thinking and being open-minded to alternatives, and to be positively associated with intuition-based thinking.…”

“…Similarly, Otis and Alcock (1982) found that university professors were more skeptical of paranormal subjects than university students or members of the general public. In another study, as students learned more about psychology, their ability to distinguish between science and pseudoscience increased and subsequently their belief in the paranormal decreased (Bensley et al 2014). Like Aarnio and Lindeman (2005), Bensley et al (2014) found that the decrease in paranormal beliefs was associated with exposure to more analytical thinking.…”

“…For example, as students progressed through a psychology program, their ability to distinguish factual science from pseudoscience increased and their belief in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects decreased (Bensley et al 2014). Similarly, students in the sciences tend to follow a curriculum that is based on critical thinking and therefore it is not surprising that students in the sciences had lower belief in paranormal subjects (Brigstock 2003).…”

“…Similarly, students in a course dedicated to skeptical investigation of parapsychology had a 32-45% decrease in paranormal beliefs (McLean and Miller 2010;Manza et al 2010). Students exposed to methods of critical thinking and evaluation of experimental design lowered their paranormal beliefs by 10% (Stark 2012), and the more scientific knowledge students had the more they rejected paranormal subjects (Bensley et al 2014). Many of these studies measured changes in paranormal belief after taking regular courses infused with critical thinking; however, in this study, changes in students' beliefs were investigated following a course specifically designed to teach critical thinking and basic science as well as directly confronting paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs.…”