The Role of Cognitive Biases in Shaping Irrational Beliefs: A Multi-Study Investigation

Abstract

Irrational beliefs (IB) encompass a broad set of beliefs that lack empirical evidence and contradict scientific principles, often grouped into conspiratorial, pseudoscientific, and paranormal domains. This paper investigated the underlying structure of these beliefs and examined whether they are rooted in a set of cognitive biases. Across four studies a single latent IB factor explained 39% to 52% of the variance among individual IB measures, with conspiracist and pseudoscientific beliefs being its core elements. Low socioeconomic status, right-wing political orientation, and religiousness accounted for a 10% to 35% variance of the IB factor. Cognitive biases consistently contributed incrementally to its prediction, explaining an additional 9% to 20% of the variance, with naturalness bias, omission bias, and the overconfidence effect emerging as the most robust predictors. Our findings additionally indicate the nuanced nature of these relationships, as the predictive power of individual cognitive biases was partially contingent on the specific irrational belief.

Universal threads: Shared sociopolitical roots and consequences of extrasensory perception and pseudoscientific beliefs

“…The similarities we observed in both predictors and consequences of two types of irrational beliefs support the idea that these beliefs are best understood as manifestation of a general tendency to endorse empirically non founded claims, as well as claims contrasting basic ontological assumptions about the world. This is in line with previous studies reporting a single general factor of irrational beliefs which accounted for a significant portion of their total variance (Teovanović et al, 2024), and thus not fully unexpected.…”

“…Furthermore, these findings are in line with previous findings showing that TCAM use is predicted by different irrational beliefs, with ESP beliefs being one of its stronger SHARED ROOTS OF ESP AND PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC BELIEFS predictors (Knežević et al, 2024). Moreover, our results show that despite their content differing, non-evidence-based beliefs form a particular mindset that is substantially predictive of different non-evidence-based behaviors, which has also been suggested by previous research (Teovanović et al, 2024).…”

“…general propensity to conspiratorial thinking is related to a deficit of political power, as well as to extreme political orientation. Moreover, studies that extract a single, common factor of irrational beliefs also demonstrate this link to right-wing ideology (Teovanović et al, 2024).…”

“…While previous research (Rizeq et al, 2021;Teovanović et al, 2024) demonstrates that different forms of irrational beliefs, e.g., paranormal beliefs or anti-science attitudes are typically tied together in an irrational mindset, their content can differ widely. To illustrate this, the belief in ancient techniques such as dowsing or belief in telekinetic abilities (i.e., extrasensory perception (ESP) beliefs) can be seen as different from fascination by claims that imitate science, but are not epistemically compatible with it, for example, the claim that beauty products' efficacy is enhanced by "DNA and stem cells" (i.e., pseudoscientific beliefs (PSBs).…”

“…This was painfully obvious in the COVID-19 pandemic (Martínez-Córdoba et al, 2021;van Mulukom et al, 2022). Psychological research shows that a set of irrational, unfounded, or epistemically suspect beliefs shapes such important behavioral choices: these beliefs defy the standards of normative logic, draw from a faulty evidence-base and are difficult to refute (Lobato et al, 2014;Rizeq et al, 2021;Žeželj & Lazarević, 2019;Teovanović et al, 2024).…”