In a paper published the journal Personality and Individual Differences, Dr. Tomas Ståhl of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Dr. Jan-Willem van Prooijen of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam report on two studies that examined why some people are inclined to believe in various paranormal phenomena and conspiracy theories.
Dr. Ståhl and Dr. van Prooijen attempted to identify psychological precursors of skepticism toward unfounded beliefs. Image credit: Patrick Neufelder.
“We show that reasonable skepticism about various conspiracies and paranormal phenomena does not only require a relatively high cognitive ability, but also strong motivation to be rational,” Dr. Ståhl said.
“When the motivation to form your beliefs based on logic and evidence is not there, people with high cognitive ability are just as likely to believe in conspiracies and paranormal phenomena as people with lower cognitive ability.”
Previous studies have indicated that people with higher cognitive ability or a more analytic thinking style are less inclined to believe in conspiracies and the paranormal.
Dr. Ståhl and Dr. van Prooijen conducted two online surveys with more than 300 respondents each to assess analytic thinking and other factors that might promote skepticism toward unfounded beliefs.
The first survey found that an analytic cognitive style was associated with weaker paranormal beliefs, conspiracy beliefs and conspiracy mentality.
However, this was only the case among participants who strongly valued forming their beliefs based on logic and evidence.
Among participants who did not strongly value a reliance on logic and evidence, having an analytic cognitive style was not associated with weaker belief in the paranormal or in various conspiracy theories.
In the second survey, the team examined whether these effects were uniquely attributable to having an analytic cognitive style or whether they were explained by more general individual differences in cognitive ability.
The results were more consistent with a general cognitive ability account.
“Despite a century of better educational opportunities and increased intelligence scores in the U.S. population, unfounded beliefs remain pervasive in contemporary society,” the authors said.
“Our findings suggest that part of the reason may be that many people do not view it as sufficiently important to form their beliefs on rational grounds.”
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Tomas Ståhl & Jan-Willemvan Prooijen. 2018. Epistemic rationality: Skepticism toward unfounded beliefs requires sufficient cognitive ability and motivation to be rational. Personality and Individual Differences 122: 155-163; doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2017.10.026
