Individual differences in epistemically suspect beliefs: The role of analytic thinking and susceptibility to cognitive biases

Abstract

The endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs (i.e. paranormal, conspiracy, and pseudoscientific beliefs) is both surprisingly widespread and has been shown to have important negative real-life consequences. For these reasons, it is important to understand individual differences in epistemically suspect beliefs and their associations with other cognitive phenomena, such as biases in reasoning and decision-making domain. In the present study (N = 397), I examined the relationship between five reasoning biases – belief bias, ratio bias, base-rate neglect, conjunction fallacy, and gambler’s fallacy – and the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs. Moreover, I accounted for a wide range of cognitive and worldview variables, i.e. cognitive ability, thinking dispositions, numeracy, cognitive reflection, scientific reasoning, religious faith, and political liberalism. The results showed that overall bias susceptibility predicted unwarranted beliefs over and above all other predictors. Specifically, most notable relationships were observed in the case of gambler’s fallacy and belief bias, which is consistent with the extant theoretical accounts of the adoption and maintenance of epistemically suspect beliefs. In line with previous research, religious faith, political affiliation, scientific reasoning, and thinking dispositions also independently predicted the endorsement of unwarranted beliefs.

Misbehaving in the Corona Crisis: The Role of Anxiety and Unfounded Beliefs

“…Multiple findings consistently showed that it is a robust negative predictor of unfounded beliefs. Namely, CR was predictive of lower endorsement of paranormal, superstitious, pseudoscientific and conspiracy beliefs (Pennycook, Cheyne, Seli, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2012;Pennycook, Cheyne, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2019;Pennycook, Fugelsang, & Koehler, 2015;Ståhl & Van Prooijen, 2018;Šrol, 2020) and higher endorsement of scientifically founded beliefs (McPhetres & Pennycook, 2019;Pennycook et al, 2019). Recently, Pennycook, McPhetres, Zhang and Rand, (2020) found that these findings also extend to beliefs about C-19.…”

Irrational beliefs differentially predict adherence to guidelines and pseudoscientific practices during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Cognitive biases, as systematic departures from what is normatively defined rational behavior, can be viewed as yet another broad category of irrational beliefs. Although they have been proven to be predictive of some paranormal (Bressan, 2002;Pennycook et al, 2012;Šrol, 2020;van Prooijen et al, 2017) and pseudoscientific beliefs (Pennycook, Cheyne et al, 2015;Redelmeier & Tversky, 1996;Šrol, 2020), cognitive biases remain underexplored in the domain of both PSPs and adherence to public health guidelines. The list of cognitive biases is considerably heterogeneous and ever evolving (Kahneman & Frederick, 2005;Pohl, 2004;Stanovich, 2009;Teovanović et al, 2015).…”

“…In our study, biases that are based on making a type I error were represented by the illusory correlation detection (Smedslund, 1963), base‐rate neglect (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), gambler's fallacy (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), and hot‐hand fallacy (Gilovich et al, 1985) bias. Although cognitive biases have shown to be predictive of some paranormal (Bressan, 2002; Pennycook et al, 2012; Šrol, 2020; van Prooijen et al, 2017) and pseudoscientific beliefs (Pennycook, Cheyne, et al, 2015; Redelmeier & Tversky, 1996; Šrol, 2020), they remain underexplored in the domain of both PSPs and adherence to public health guidelines. Starting from the general hypothesis about relation between irrational beliefs and health behaviors, we expected that a higher susceptibility to such cognitive biases would predict lesser adherence to COVID‐19 guidelines (H3a), greater use of PSPs (H3b), and weaker intention to get vaccinated (H3c).…”

Misbehaving in the Corona crisis: The role of anxiety and unfounded beliefs

“…Multiple findings consistently showed that it is a robust negative predictor of unfounded beliefs. Namely, cognitive reflection was predictive of lower endorsement of paranormal, superstitious, pseudoscientific and conspiracy beliefs (Pennycook et al 2012;Pennycook et al in press, 2015;Ståhl and Van Prooijen 2018;Šrol 2020) and higher endorsement of scientifically founded beliefs (McPhetres and Pennycook 2019;Pennycook et al in press). Several recent studies (e.g.…”