Four studies explore the role of perceptual fluency in attenuating bullshit receptivity, or the tendency for individuals to rate otherwise meaningless statements as “profound”. Across four studies, we presented participants with a sample of pseudoprofound bullshit statements in either a fluent or disfluent font and found that overall, disfluency attenuated bullshit receptivity while also finding little evidence that this effect was moderated by cognitive thinking style. In all studies, we measured participants’ cognitive reflection, need for cognition, faith in intuition, and (...) superstitious beliefs. Superstition strongly predicted bullshit receptivity regardless of fluency. Inconclusive results were found for the remaining scales. Potential links for the role of perceptual disfluency in promoting analytic thinking are discussed. (shrink)

Disproof of heaven? -- Brain and gods -- The rational stance -- Reason and belief in God -- Against naturalism -- Atheism, inference, and IQ -- Atheism, autism, and intellectual humility -- Googling God -- Inference, intuition, and rationality.

What does it mean to have “strong beliefs”? My thesis is that it can mean two very different things. That is, there are two distinct psychological features to which “strong belief” can refer, and these often come apart. I call the first feature epistemic confidence and the second identity centrality. They are conceptually distinct and, if we take ethnographies of religion seriously, distinct in fact as well. If that’s true, it’s methodologically important for the psychological sciences to have measures that (...) tease them apart. In this paper, I critique some measures that are currently in use and propose some strategies for developing measurement tools that track the distinction in question. (shrink)

Prior research found correlations between reflection test performance and philosophical tendencies among laypeople. In two large studies (total N = 1299)—one pre-registered—many of these correlations were replicated in a sample that included both laypeople and philosophers. For example, reflection test performance predicted preferring atheism over theism and instrumental harm over harm avoidance on the trolley problem. However, most reflection-philosophy correlations were undetected when controlling for other factors such as numeracy, preferences for open-minded thinking, personality, philosophical training, age, and gender. Nonetheless, (...) some correlations between reflection and philosophical views survived this multivariate analysis and were only partially confounded with either education or self-reported reasoning preferences. Unreflective thinking still predicted believing in God whereas reflective thinking still predicted believing that (a) proper names like ‘Santa’ do not necessarily refer to entities that actually exist and (b) science does reveal the fundamental nature of the world. So some robust relationships between reflection and philosophical tendencies were detected even among philosophers, and yet there was clearly more to the link between reflection and philosophy. To this end, demographic and metaphilosophical hypotheses are considered. (shrink)

The replicability and importance of the correlation between cognitive style and religious belief have been debated. Moreover, the literature has not examined distinct psychological accounts of this relationship. We tested the replicability of the correlation (N = 5284; students and broader samples of Canadians, Americans, and Indians); while testing three accounts of how cognitive style comes to be related to belief in God, karma, witchcraft, and to the belief that religion is necessary for morality. The first, the dual process model, (...) posits that analytical thinking is recruited in overriding intuitions related to supernatural beliefs. The second, the expressive rationality model, posits that analytical thinking is recruited in supporting already-held beliefs in an identity-protective manner. And the third, the counter-normativity rationality model, posits that analytical thinking is recruited to question beliefs supported by prevailing cultural norms. In Study 2, we tested the replicability of our results in a re-analysis of published data. The association between analytic thinking style and beliefs was replicated. We conclude that whereas the counter-normativity rationality model was contradicted by the data, both the dual process and expressive rationality models received varying degrees of empirical support, but neither model fully accounted for all the patterns in the data. (shrink)

The demarcation of pseudoscience has been one of the most important philosophical tasks since the 1960s. During the 1980s, an atmosphere of defeatism started to spread among philosophers of science, some of them claimed the failure of the demarcation project. I defend that the more auspicious approach to the problem might be through the intellectual character of epistemic agents, i.e., from the point of view of vice epistemology. Unfortunately, common lists of undesirable character features are usually based on a priori (...) reasoning, and therefore might be considered artificial or too vague. When we base our position on contemporary behavioural sciences, we can see that the epistemic character of believers in pseudoscience is for the most part determined by two related factors. Firstly, these epistemic agents show a higher level of cognitive laziness. By this I mean an inability or unwillingness to engage in reflective thinking and a reluctance to account for counterevidence. Secondly, they yield more easily to metacognitive overconfidence. This can be broadly understood as so-called “knowledge illusion”, the inability to recognize one’s own intellectual limits. The deficiency usually stems from a misunderstanding of the division of cognitive labour and of the agent’s role in epistemic society. I find the proposed epistemological approach to pseudoscience crucial. Only if we understand the descriptive aspects of the problem, can we think of normative solutions to it. (shrink)

Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States increased exponentially, quickly leading to a pandemic in 2020, which created a serious public-health emergency. During the period in which the COVID-1...

Better understanding the psychological factors related to certainty in one’s beliefs (i.e., dogmatism) has important consequences for both individuals and social groups. Generally, beliefs can find support from at least two different routes of information processing: social/moral considerations or analytic/empirical reasoning. Here, we investigate how these two psychological constructs relate to dogmatism in two groups of individuals who preferentially draw on the former or latter sort of information when forming beliefs about the world- religious and non religious individuals. Across two (...) studies and their pooled analysis, we provide evidence that although dogmatism is negatively related to analytic reasoning in both groups of individuals, it shares a divergent relationship with measures of moral concern depending on whether one identifies as religious or not. Study 1 showed that increasing levels of dogmatism were positively related to prosocial intentions among the religious and negatively related to empathic concern among the nonreligious. Study 2 replicated and extended these results by showing that perspective taking is negatively related to dogmatism in both groups, an effect which is particularly robust among the nonreligious. Study 2 also showed that religious fundamentalism was positively related to measures of moral concern among the religious. Because the current studies used a content neutral measure to assess dogmatic certainty in one’s beliefs, they have the potential to inform practices for most effectively communicating with and persuading religious and nonreligious individuals to change maladaptive behavior, even when the mode of discourse is unrelated to religious belief. (shrink)

Rob Lovering has recently argued that since theists have been unable, by means of philosophical arguments, to convince 85 percent of professional philosophers that God exists, at least one of their defining beliefs must be either false or meaningless. This paper is a critical examination of his argument. First we present Lovering’s argument and point out its salient features. Next we explain why the argument’s conclusion is entirely acceptable for theists, even if, as we show, there are multiple problems with (...) the premises. (shrink)

There has been considerable debate in the literature as to whether work in experimental philosophy actually makes any significant contribution to philosophy. One stated view is that many X-Phi projects, notwithstanding their focus on topics relevant to philosophy, contribute little to philosophical thought. Instead, it has been claimed the contribution they make appears to be to cognitive science. In contrast to this view, here we argue that at least one approach to X-Phi makes a contribution which parallels, and also extends, (...) historically salient forms of philosophical analysis, especially contributions from Immanuel Kant, William James, Peter F. Strawson and Thomas Nagel. The framework elaborated here synthesizes philosophical theory with empirical evidence from psychology and neuroscience and applies it to three perennial philosophical problems. According to this account, the origin of these three problems can be illuminated by viewing them as arising from a tension between two distinct types of cognition, each of which is associated with anatomically independent and functionally inhibitory neural networks. If the parallel we draw, between an empirical project and historically highly influential examples of philosophical analysis, is viewed as convincing, it follows that work in the cognitive sciences can contribute directly to philosophy. Further, this conclusion holds whether the empirical details of the account are correct or not. (shrink)

This paper is the product of an interdisciplinary, interreligious dialogue aiming to outline some of the possibilities and rational limits of supernatural religious belief, in the light of a critique of David Hume’s familiar sceptical arguments -- including a rejection of his famous Maxim on miracles -- combined with a range of striking recent empirical research. The Humean nexus leads us to the formulation of a new ”Common-Core/Diversity Dilemma’, which suggests that the contradictions between different religious belief systems, in conjunction (...) with new understandings of the cognitive forces that shape their common features, persuasively challenge the rationality of most kinds of supernatural belief. In support of this conclusion, we survey empirical research concerning intercessory prayer, religious experience, near-death experience, and various cognitive biases. But we then go on to consider evidence that supernaturalism -- even when rationally unwarranted -- has significant beneficial individual and social effects, despite others that are far less desirable. This prompts the formulation of a ”Normal/Objective Dilemma’, identifying important trade-offs to be found in the choice between our humanly evolved ”normal’ outlook on the world, and one that is more rational and ”objective’. Can we retain the pragmatic benefits of supernatural belief while avoiding irrationality and intergroup conflict? It may well seem that rationality is incompatible with any wilful sacrifice of objectivity. But in a situation of uncertainty, an attractive compromise may be available by moving from the competing factions and mutual contradictions of ”first-order’ supernaturalism to a more abstract and tolerant ”second-order’ view, which itself can be given some distinctive intellectual support through the increasingly popular Fine Tuning Argument. We end by proposing a ”Maxim of the Moon’ to express the undogmatic spirit of this second-order religiosity, providing a cautionary metaphor to counter the pervasive bias endemic to the human condition, and offering a more cooperation- and humility-enhancing understanding of religious diversity in a tense and precarious globalised age. (shrink)

I argue that psychology and epistemology should posit distinct cognitive attitudes of religious credence and factual belief, which have different etiologies and different cognitive and behavioral effects. I support this claim by presenting a range of empirical evidence that religious cognitive attitudes tend to lack properties characteristic of factual belief, just as attitudes like hypothesis, fictional imagining, and assumption for the sake of argument generally lack such properties. Furthermore, religious credences have distinctive properties of their own. To summarize: factual beliefs (...) are practical setting independent, cognitively govern other attitudes, and are evidentially vulnerable. By way of contrast, religious credences have perceived normative orientation, are susceptible to free elaboration, and are vulnerable to special authority. This theory provides a framework for future research in the epistemology and psychology of religious credence. (shrink)

The dual-process model of cognition but most especially its reflective component, system 2 processing, shows strong conceptual links with critical thinking. In fact, the salient characteristics of system 2 processing are so strikingly close to that of critical thinking, that it is tempting to claim that critical thinking is system 2 processing, no more and no less. In this article, I consider the two sides of that claim: Does critical thinking always require system 2 processing? And does system 2 processing (...) always result in critical thinking? I argue that it is plausible and helpful to consider that critical thinking requires system 2 processing. In particular, this assumption can provide interesting insights and benchmarks for critical thinking education. On the other hand, I show that system 2 processing can result in a range of outcomes which are either contradictory with critical thinking, or of debatable social desirability—which suggests that there is more to critical thinking than mere system 2 processing, and more to system 2 processing than just critical thinking. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists have revealed systematic errors in human reasoning. There is disagreement about what these errors indicate about human rationality, but one upshot seems clear: human reasoning does not seem to fit traditional views of human rationality. This concern about rationality has made its way through various fields and has recently caught the attention of philosophers. The concern is that if philosophers are prone to systematic errors in reasoning, then the integrity of philosophy would be threatened. In this paper, I (...) present some of the more famous work in cognitive science that has marshaled this concern. Then I present reasons to think that those with training in philosophy will be less prone to certain systematic errors in reasoning. The suggestion is that if philosophers could be shown to be less prone to such errors, then the worries about the integrity of philosophy could be constrained. Then I present evidence that, according to performance on the CRT (Frederick 2005), those who have benefited from training and selection in philosophy are indeed less prone to one kind of systematic error: irrationally arbitrating between intuitive and reflective responses. Nonetheless, philosophers are not entirely immune to this systematic error, and their proclivity for this error is statistically related to their responses to a variety of philosophical questions. So, while the evidence herein puts constraints on the worries about the integrity of philosophy, it by no means eliminates these worries. The conclusion, then, is that the present evidence offers prima facie reasons to ascribe a mitigated privilege to philosophers' ability to rationally arbitrate between intuitive and reflective responses. (shrink)

We provide evidence that religious skeptics, as compared to believers, are both more reflective and effective in logical reasoning tasks. While recent studies have reported a negative association between an analytic cognitive style and religiosity, they focused exclusively on accuracy, making it difficult to specify potential underlying cognitive mechanisms. The present study extends the previous research by assessing both performance and response times on quintessential logical reasoning problems. Those reporting more religious skepticism made fewer reasoning errors than did believers. This (...) finding remained significant after controlling for general cognitive ability, time spent on the problems, and various demographic variables. Crucial for the purpose of exploring underlying mechanisms, response times indicated that skeptics also spent more time reasoning than did believers. This novel finding suggests a possible role of response slowing during analytic problem solving as a component of cognitive style that promotes overriding intuitive first impressions. Implications for using additional processing measures, such as response time, to investigate individual differences in cognitive style are discussed. (shrink)

We hypothesised that belief in conspiracy theories would be predicted by the general tendency to attribute agency and intentionality where it is unlikely to exist. We further hypothesised that this tendency would explain the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories, where lower levels of education have been found to be associated with higher conspiracy belief. In Study 1 participants were more likely to agree with a range of conspiracy theories if they also tended to attribute intentionality and (...) agency to inanimate objects. As predicted, this relationship accounted for the link between education level and belief in conspiracy theories. We replicated this finding in Study 2, whilst taking into account beliefs in paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that education may undermine the reasoning processes and assumptions that are reflected in conspiracy belief. (shrink)

Research on the reasons for vaccine hesitancy has largely focused on factors directly related to vaccines. In contrast, the present study focused on cognitive factors that are not conceptually related to vaccines but that have been linked to other epistemically suspect beliefs such as conspiracy theories and belief in fake news. This survey was conducted before the Covid-19 pandemic (N = 356). The results showed that anti-vaccination attitudes decreased slightly with cognitive abilities and analytic thinking styles, and strongly with scientific (...) literacy. In addition, anti-vaccination attitudes increased slightly with teleological bias and strongly with an intuitive thinking style, ontological biases, and religious and paranormal beliefs. The results suggest that the same cognitive mechanisms that predispose to other epistemically suspect beliefs may predispose to anti-vaccination attitudes as well. The findings also indicate that pro-vaccination communication should focus on early prevention and that interventions against vaccine hesitancy should strive to be intuitively appealing. (shrink)

Religious people seem to believe things that range from the somewhat peculiar to the utterly bizarre. Or do they? According to a new paper by Neil Van Leeuwen, religious “credence” is nothing like mundane factual belief. It has, he claims, more in common with fictional imaginings. Religious folk do not really “believe”—in the ordinary sense of the word—what they profess to believe. Like fictional imaginings, but unlike factual beliefs, religious credences are activated only within specific settings. We argue that Van (...) Leeuwen’s thesis contradicts a wealth of data on religiously motivated behavior. By and large, the faithful genuinely believe what they profess to believe. Although many religions openly embrace a sense of mystery, in general this does not prevent the attribution of beliefs to religious people. Many of the features of religious belief that Van Leeuwen alludes to, like invulnerability to refutation and incoherence, are characteristic of irrational beliefs in general and actually betray... (shrink)

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005) is designed to measure the tendency to override a prepotent response alternative that is incorrect and to engage in further reflection that leads to the correct response. It is a prime measure of the miserly information processing posited by most dual process theories. The original three-item test may be becoming known to potential participants, however. We examined a four-item version that could serve as a substitute for the original. Our data show that it (...) displays a.58 correlation with the original version and that it has very similar relationships with cognitive ability, various thinking dispositions, and with several other rational thinking tasks. Combining the two versions into a seven-item test resulted in a measure of miserly processing with substantial reliability (.72). The seven-item version was a strong independent predictor of performance on rational thinking tasks after the variance accounted for by cognitive ability and thinking dispositions had been partialled out. (shrink)

Sociologists increasingly draw on dual-process models of cognition to account for the ways context, cognition, and action interrelate. Drawing from 40 interviews with improvisers and observations from improvisational theater, I find that dual-process model scholarship is limited in three respects: It does not consider how cognition operates in situations where order and disruption are concurrent, it fails to realize there is interindividual variation in cognitive processing, and it underestimates the creativity emerging through automatic processes. Interactions in improv contain elements of (...) both order and disruption, and they place demands on automatic and deliberate cognition simultaneously. Improvisers respond to these competing demands through either automatic or deliberate thinking dispositions, which are engendered through explicit instruction, practical experience, and artistic commitments. These dispositions, in turn, shape creative decision-making, predicting interindividual differences in how improvisers respond to contingencies on stage. I conclude by discussing the implications for culture, cognition, and action. (shrink)

This article presents the basic achievements of the psychology of religion in the Lvov-Warsaw School of K. Twardowski, their developments and significance for the contemporary psychology of religion. Twardowski’s School existed parallel to other European psychological schools: the Würzburg School, founded by Oswald Külpe, and the Dorpat School of the Psychology of Religion, founded by Karl Girgensohn. The article presents two research trends in the psychology of religion resulting from Twardowski’s works, specifically research on mental acts and religious beliefs with (...) use of introspection and research in the field of cultural-historical psychology. The theory of acts and products, and the theory of cratism/power played crucial roles here. Psychological investigations into religious beliefs were also dominated by the psychological principle of contradiction, and the obtained results also seem to be important today. (shrink)

Individuals’ propensity not to override the first answer that comes to mind is thought to be a crucial cause behind many failures in reasoning. In the present study, we aimed to explore the strategies used and the abilities employed when individuals solve the cognitive reflection test, the most widely used measure of this tendency. Alongside individual differences measures, protocol analysis was employed to unfold the steps of the reasoning process in solving the CRT. This exploration revealed that there are several (...) ways people solve or fail the test. Importantly, 77% of the cases in which reasoners gave the correct final answer in our protocol analysis, they started their response with the correct answer or with a line of thought which led to the correct answer. We also found that 39% of the incorrect responders reflected on their first response. The findings indicate that the suppression of the first answer may not be the only crucial feature of reflectivity in the CRT and that the lack of relevant knowledge is a prominent cause of the reasoning errors. Additionally, we confirmed that the CRT is a multi-faceted construct: both numeracy and reflectivity account for performance. The results can help to better apprehend the “whys and whens” of the decision errors in heuristics and biases tasks and to further refine existing explanatory models. (shrink)

How and why does the moon cause the tides? How and why does God answer prayers? For many, the answer to the former question is unknown; the answer to the latter question is a mystery. Across three studies testing a largely Christian sample within the United States (N= 2524), we investigate attitudes toward ignorance and inquiry as a window onto scientific versus religious belief. In Experiment 1, we find that science and religion are associated with different forms of ignorance: scientific (...) ignorance is typically expressed as a personal unknown (“it's unknown to me”), whereas religious ignorance is expressed as a universal mystery (“it's a mystery”), with scientific unknowns additionally regarded as more viable and valuable targets for inquiry. In Experiment 2, we show that these forms of ignorance are differentially associated with epistemic goals and norms: expressing ignorance in the form of “unknown” (vs. “mystery”) more strongly signals epistemic values and achievements. Experiments 2 and 3 additionally show that ignorance is perceived to be a greater threat to science and scientific belief than to religion and religious belief. Together, these studies shed light on the psychological roles of scientific and religious belief in human cognition. (shrink)

A ‘scientific worldview’ is commonly seen as contradictory to belief in supernatural forces, and there is little research on the supernatural beliefs of individuals who identify with science. In this article, we investigate the supernatural explanations of science-oriented individuals in domains of fundamental concern (suffering, death, and origins), and how supernatural causality is reconciled with belief in science. The open-ended responses of 387 Finns were analysed. The results show that science-oriented Finns endorsed both religion-related and more secular supernatural beliefs (such (...) as belief in evolution as a purposeful process). Following the coexistence model, science-oriented Finns applied synthetic and target-dependent reasoning. In addition, many who invoked supernatural explanations integrated supernatural causality with science. Two forms of integrated reasoning were found: 1) supernatural agency as the ultimate cause and scientific theory as the proximate cause, and 2) a similarity-based heuristic, as seen in afterlife beliefs appealing to the law of conservation of energy. (shrink)

The attempts to mitigate the unprecedented health, economic, and social disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are largely dependent on establishing compliance to behavioral guidelines and rules that reduce the risk of infection. Here, by conducting an online survey that tested participants’ knowledge about the disease and measured demographic, attitudinal, and cognitive variables, we identify predictors of self-reported social distancing and hygiene behavior. To investigate the cognitive processes underlying health-prevention behavior in the pandemic, we co-opted the dual-process model of thinking (...) to measure participants’ propensities for automatic and intuitive thinking vs. controlled and reflective thinking. Self-reports of 17 precautionary behaviors, including regular hand washing, social distancing, and wearing a face mask, served as a dependent measure. The results of hierarchical regressions showed that age, risk-taking propensity, and concern about the pandemic predicted adoption of precautionary behavior. Variance in cognitive processes also predicted precautionary behavior: participants with higher scores for controlled thinking (measured with the Cognitive Reflection Test) reported less adherence to specific guidelines, as did respondents with a poor understanding of the infection and transmission mechanism of the COVID-19 virus. The predictive power of this model was comparable to an approach (Theory of Planned Behavior) based on attitudes to health behavior. Given these results, we propose the inclusion of measures of cognitive reflection and mental model variables in predictive models of compliance, and future studies of precautionary behavior to establish how cognitive variables are linked with people’s information processing and social norms. (shrink)

An underlying assumption of default-interventionist dual-process theory (DI-DPT) of reasoning is that humans tend to act as cognitive misers. Although miserly cognitive processing occurs when indiv...

In this study, we explore the relation between scientific literacy and unwarranted beliefs. The results show heterogeneous interactions between six constructs: conspiracy theories poorly interact with scientific literacy; there are major differences between attitudinal and practical dimensions of critical thinking; paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs show similar associations ; and, only scientific knowledge interacts with other predictor of unwarranted beliefs, such as ontological confusions. These results reveal a limited impact: science educators must take into account the complex interactions between the dimensions (...) of scientific literacy and different types of unwarranted beliefs to improve pedagogical strategies. (shrink)

Individual differences in the mere willingness to think analytically has been shown to predict religious disbelief. Recently, however, it has been argued that analytic thinkers are not actually less religious; rather, the putative association may be a result of religiosity typically being measured after analytic thinking (an order effect). In light of this possibility, we report four studies in which a negative correlation between religious belief and performance on analytic thinking measures is found when religious belief is measured in a (...) separate session. We also performed a meta-analysis on all previously published studies on the topic along with our four new studies (N = 15,078, k = 31), focusing specifically on the association between performance on the Cognitive Reflection Test (the most widely used individual difference measure of analytic thinking) and religious belief. This meta-analysis revealed an overall negative correlation (r) of -.18, 95% CI [-.21, -.16]. Although this correlation is modest, self-identified atheists (N = 133) scored 18.7% higher than religiously affiliated individuals (N = 597) on a composite measure of analytic thinking administered across our four new studies (d = .72). Our results indicate that the association between analytic thinking and religious disbelief is not caused by a simple order effect. There is good evidence that atheists and agnostics are more reflective than religious believers. (shrink)

A divide exists in the creativity literature as to whether relatively more or less executive processing is beneficial to creative thinking. To explore this issue, we employ an individual differences perspective informed by dual-process theories in which it is assumed that people vary in the extent to which they rely on autonomous or controlled processing . We find that those more willing and/or able to engage Type 2 processing are more likely to successfully make creative connections in tasks requiring the (...) unification of disparate elements and the novelty of generated items, but not in some other indices of creativity, namely, cognitive flexibility and fluency. Implications for the role of executive processing in creative thinking are discussed in the context of DPTs. We situate the ability to make remote connections alongside other advanced higher order thinking capabilities that are unique to humans. (shrink)

While individual differences in the willingness and ability to engage analytic processing have long informed research in reasoning and decision making, the implications of such differences have not yet had a strong influence in other domains of psychological research. We claim that analytic thinking is not limited to problems that have a normative basis and, as an extension of this, predict that individual differences in analytic thinking will be influential in determining beliefs and values. Along with assessments of cognitive ability (...) and style, religious beliefs, and moral values, participants judged the wrongness of acts considered disgusting and conventionally immoral, but that do not violate care- or fairness-based moral principles. Differences in willingness to engage analytic thinking predicted reduced judgements of wrongness, independent of demographics, political ideology, religiosity, and moral values. Further, we show that those who were higher in cognitive ability were less likely to indicate that purity, patriotism, and respect for traditions and authority are important to their moral thinking. These findings are consistent with a “Reflectionist” view that assumes a role for analytic thought in determining substantive, deeply-held human beliefs and values. (shrink)