Ontological confusions but not mentalizing abilities predict religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in supernatural purpose

Paranormal belief, conspiracy endorsement, and positive wellbeing: a network analysis

Using network analysis (NA), this study examined interrelationships between advocacy of scientifically unsubstantiated beliefs (i.e., Paranormal and Conspiracy Endorsement) and positive wellbeing outcomes (i.e., Coping, Meaning in Life, Self-Esteem, and Satisfaction with Life). A total of 1,667 participants completed study measures. Analysis revealed that Paranormal Belief (PB) and Self-Esteem were central variables. Although not directly connected, common relationships existed with Search for Meaning in Life and Avoidant Coping. PB was most strongly linked (positively) with Conspiracy Endorsement, the Cognitive-Perceptual dimension of schizotypy, Search, and Avoidant Coping. Connections indicated that PB potentially mediated relationships between Schizotypy, Search, and Avoidant Coping. Self-Esteem was most strongly linked positively with the Presence of Meaning in Life, Active Coping, and Satisfaction with Life, and negatively with Avoidant Coping and Search. Network examination also revealed that Self-Esteem bridged relationships between Coping (Active and Avoidant), Meaning in Life (Search and Presence), and Satisfaction with Life. While the correlation between PB and Self-Esteem was small, the significance of these nodes suggested that their indirect interaction (through Search and Avoidant Coping) influenced factors related to positive wellbeing. This implied that the connection between PB and enhanced Self-Esteem positively impacted wellbeing. Conversely, PB associated with low Self-Esteem reflected poorer psychological health. Therefore, subsequent research should test this notion using specific belief facets.

Prevalence, patterns and predictors of paranormal beliefs in The Netherlands: a several-analysts approach

Paranormal beliefs encompass a wide variety of phenomena, including the existence of supernatural entities such as ghosts and witches, as well as extraordinary human abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance. In the current study, we used a nationally representative sample ( N = 2534 ) to investigate the presence and correlates of paranormal beliefs among the secular Dutch population. The results indicated that most single paranormal phenomena (e.g. belief in clairvoyance) are endorsed by 10-20% of Dutch respondents; however, 55.6% of respondents qualify as paranormal believers based on the preregistered criterion that they believe in at least one phenomenon with considerable certainty. In addition, we invited four analysis teams with different methodological expertise to assess the structure of paranormal beliefs using traditional factor analysis, network analysis, Bayesian network analysis and latent class analysis (LCA). The teams' analyses indicated adequate fit of a four-factor structure reported in a 1985 study, but also emphasized different conclusions across techniques; network analyses showed evidence against strong connectedness within most clusters, and suggested a five-cluster structure. The application of various analytic techniques painted a nuanced picture of paranormal beliefs and believers in The Netherlands and suggests that despite increased secularization, subgroups of the general population still believe in paranormal phenomena.

The association of perceived stigma, religiosity, and paranormal beliefs in parents of children with epilepsy

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between stigma perception, religiosity, and paranormal beliefs in parents of children with epilepsy.

METHODS

The sample of this cross-sectional study consisted of 103 parents of children with epilepsy registered at a state hospital in a city with middle socio-economic status located in southeastern Türkiye. The data were collected using descriptive information forms for parents and children with epilepsy, the Parent Stigma Scale, the Religious Attitude Scale, and the Paranormal Belief Scale. The Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance, and Spearman's correlation analysis were used to assess the data.

RESULTS

The results of the study revealed that while 78.6 % of the parents were female, 59.2 % of the children with epilepsy were boys. Total mean scores of the participants were 18.48 ± 4.84 in the Parent Stigma Scale, 51.73 ± 14.15 in the Classical (Non-Religious) Paranormal Beliefs Dimension, and 33.89 ± 6.55 in the Religious Attitude Scale. A weak positive correlation was found between total mean scores of the Parent Stigma Scale, the Paranormal Belief Scale and the Religious Attitude Scale (p < 0.05). However, there was no statistically significant correlation between the mean scores of the Paranormal Belief Scale and the Religiosity Attitude Scale (p > 0.05). All of the three scales were positively correlated with the age of the parents and the duration of the illness (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

In this study, it was observed that while the parents had high levels of stigma perception and religious attitudes, they had moderate attitudes toward paranormal beliefs. While no direct correlation was found between religious attitudes and paranormal beliefs, cognitive inclinations toward religion were negatively correlated with paranormal beliefs. Additionally, the parents who perceived a higher level of stigma were more likely to hold stronger religious attitudes and beliefs related to various aspects of paranormal events. In the light of these findings, it is recommended to design educational programs and information campaigns aimed at reducing social stigma and raising awareness about epilepsy in such a way as to take individual belief systems into considerations.

Examining the relationship between metacognitive trust in thinking styles and supernatural beliefs

Conflicting findings have emerged from research on the relationship between thinking styles and supernatural beliefs. In two studies, we examined this relationship through meta-cognitive trust and developed a new: (1) experimental manipulation, a short scientific article describing the benefits of thinking styles: (2) trust in thinking styles measure, the Ambiguous Decisions task; and (3) supernatural belief measure, the Belief in Psychic Ability scale. In Study 1 (N = 415) we found differences in metacognitive trust in thinking styles between the analytical and intuitive condition, and overall greater trust in analytical thinking. We also found stronger correlations between thinking style measures (in particular intuitive thinking) and psychic ability and paranormal beliefs than with religious beliefs, but a mixed-effect linear regression showed little to no variation in how measures of thinking style related to types of supernatural beliefs. In Study 2, we replicated Study 1 with participants from the United States, Canada, and Brazil (N = 802), and found similar results, with the Brazilian participants showing a reduced emphasis on analytical thinking. We conclude that our new design, task, and scale may be particularly useful for dual-processing research on supernatural belief.

Construct validity evidence reporting practices for the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test: A systematic scoping review

The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) is one of the most influential measures of social cognitive ability, and it has been used extensively in clinical populations. However, questions have been raised about the validity of RMET scores. We conducted a systematic scoping review of the validity evidence reported in studies that administered the RMET (n = 1461; of which 804 included at least one clinical sample) with a focus on six key dimensions: internal consistency, test-retest reliability, factor structure, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and known group validity. Strikingly, 63% of these studies failed to provide validity evidence from any of these six categories. Moreover, when evidence was reported, it frequently failed to meet widely accepted validity standards. Overall, our results suggest a troubling conclusion: the validity of RMET scores (and the research findings based on them) are largely unsubstantiated and uninterpretable. More broadly, this project demonstrates how unaddressed measurement issues can undermine a voluminous psychological literature.

The Association of Prayer Frequency and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: A Comparative Study of the USA, India and Turkey

This study explores whether Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Inglehart's values paradigm underlies associations between prayer frequency and happiness. Responses from a comparative analysis of wave six from the World Values Survey for India (n = 4078), Turkey (n = 1605) and the USA (n = 2232) were used to examine associations between prayer frequency and happiness. Prayer frequency interacted with Maslow's model to associate with happiness in India and Turkey. The self-expression variables entirely supplant prayer and are associated with happiness in the USA. The implications are discussed for generating models that impact happiness.

Medical decision making beyond evidence: Correlates of belief in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and homeopathy

Many people believe in and use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to address health issues or prevent diseases. Empirical evidence for those treatments is either lacking or controversial due to methodological weaknesses. Thus, practitioners and patients primarily rely on subjective references rather than credible empirical evidence from systematic research. This study investigated whether cognitive and personality factors explain differences in belief in CAM and homeopathy. We investigated the robustness of 21 predictors when examined together to obtain insights into key determinants of such beliefs in a sample of 599 participants (60% female, 18-81 years). A combination of predictors explained 20% of the variance in CAM belief (predictors: ontological confusions, spiritual epistemology, agreeableness, death anxiety, gender) and approximately 21% of the variance in belief in homeopathy (predictors: ontological confusions, illusory pattern perception, need for cognitive closure, need for cognition, honesty-humility, death anxiety, gender, age). Individuals believing in CAM and homeopathy have cognitive biases and certain individual differences which make them perceive the world differently. Findings are discussed in the context of previous literature and in relation to other unfounded beliefs.

The explanation-polarisation model: Pseudoscience spreads through explanatory satisfaction and group polarisation

This article presents an integrative model for the endorsement of pseudoscience: the explanation-polarisation model. It is based on a combination of perceived explanatory satisfaction and group polarisation, offering a perspective different from the classical confusion-based conception, in which pseudoscientific beliefs would be accepted through a lack of distinction between science and science mimicry. First, I discuss the confusion-based account in the light of current evidence, pointing out some of its explanatory shortcomings. Second, I develop the explanation-polarisation model, showing its explanatory power in connection with recent research outcomes in cognitive and social psychology.

Paranormal belief and well-being: The moderating roles of transliminality and psychopathology-related facets

Evaluation of prior research suggests that belief in the paranormal is more likely to be associated with negative psychological functioning, when presented alongside cognitive-perceptual factors that askew thinking and insight. The current study examined this notion using a sample of 3,084 participants (1,382 males, 1,693 females, nine non-binary). Respondents completed self-report measures assessing Paranormal Belief, Transliminality, psychopathology-related characteristics (Schizotypy and Manic-Depressive Experience), and well-being (Perceived Stress and Somatic Complaints). Responses were analysed via correlations and moderation. Paranormal Belief correlated positively with Transliminality, psychopathology-related measures, Perceived Stress, and Somatic Complaints. Moderation analyses revealed that Transliminality and psychopathology-related variables (i.e., the Unusual Experiences and Cognitive Disorganisation subscales of schizotypy, and Manic-Depressive Experience) interacted with Paranormal Belief in complex ways and were allied to higher scores on negative well-being outcomes. This indicated that within paranormal believers, Transliminality and specific psychopathology-related variables in combination predicted susceptibility to negative well-being outcomes.

The Einstein effect provides global evidence for scientific source credibility effects and the influence of religiosity

People tend to evaluate information from reliable sources more favourably, but it is unclear exactly how perceivers' worldviews interact with this source credibility effect. In a large and diverse cross-cultural sample (N = 10,195 from 24 countries), we presented participants with obscure, meaningless statements attributed to either a spiritual guru or a scientist. We found a robust global source credibility effect for scientific authorities, which we dub 'the Einstein effect': across all 24 countries and all levels of religiosity, scientists held greater authority than spiritual gurus. In addition, individual religiosity predicted a weaker relative preference for the statement from the scientist compared with the spiritual guru, and was more strongly associated with credibility judgements for the guru than the scientist. Independent data on explicit trust ratings across 143 countries mirrored our experimental findings. These findings suggest that irrespective of one's religious worldview, across cultures science is a powerful and universal heuristic that signals the reliability of information.

On the Adaptive Value of Paranormal Beliefs - a Qualitative Study

Ten female and five male participants (age range 28-50 years) were recruited at esoteric fairs or via esoteric chatrooms. In a guided face-to-face interview, they reported origins and contents of their beliefs in e.g. esoteric practices, supernatural beings, rebirthing, channeling. Transcripts of the tape-recorded reports were subjected to a qualitative analysis. Exhaustive categorization of the narratives' content revealed that paranormal beliefs were functional with regard to two fundamental motives - striving for mastery and valuing me and mine (striving for a positive evaluation of the self). Moreover, paranormal beliefs paved the way for goal-setting and leading a meaningful life but, on the negative side, could also result in social exclusion. Results are discussed with reference to the adaptive value of paranormal beliefs.

Protective Action and Risky Beliefs: The Relationship Between Religion and Gambling Fallacies

A number of studies have explored the relationship between religious beliefs and gambling (including gambling fallacies and gambling harm) but report seemingly contradictory findings. While some studies have found religious belief to be positively associated with gambling fallacies, others have found it to be a protective factor from gambling harms. One explanation for these differing effects is that gambling fallacies and metaphysical religious belief share properties of supernatural and magical thinking. Nevertheless, social support and moral strictures associated with religion might help protect against an unhealthy engagement with gambling. Using a multidimensional measure of religiosity, we hypothesised that only the supernatural facet of religious adherence would present a risk for gambling fallacies. We analysed two archival data sources collected in Canada (Quinte Longitudinal Study: N = 4121, M_age = 46, SD_age = 14, Female = 54%; Leisure, Lifestyle and Lifecycle Project: N = 1372, M_age = 37, SD_age = 17, Female = 56%). Using the Rohrbaugh-Jessor Religiosity Scale, we confirmed that the supernatural theistic domain of religion was a positive risk factor for gambling fallacies. However, participation in ritual (behavioural) aspects, such as churchgoing, was negatively associated with risk, and no effect was observed for the consequential (moral) domain. We conclude that multidimensional aspects in religious measures may account for conflicting prior findings.

Cognitive Pathways to Belief in Karma and Belief in God

Supernatural beliefs are ubiquitous around the world, and mounting evidence indicates that these beliefs partly rely on intuitive, cross-culturally recurrent cognitive processes. Specifically, past research has focused on humans' intuitive tendency to perceive minds as part of the cognitive foundations of belief in a personified God-an agentic, morally concerned supernatural entity. However, much less is known about belief in karma-another culturally widespread but ostensibly non-agentic supernatural entity reflecting ethical causation across reincarnations. In two studies and four high-powered samples, including mostly Christian Canadians and mostly Hindu Indians (Study 1, N = 2,006) and mostly Christian Americans and Singaporean Buddhists (Study 2, N = 1,752), we provide the first systematic empirical investigation of the cognitive intuitions underlying various forms of belief in karma. We used path analyses to (a) replicate tests of the previously documented cognitive predictors of belief in God, (b) test whether this same network of variables predicts belief in karma, and (c) examine the relative contributions of cognitive and cultural variables to both sets of beliefs. We found that cognitive tendencies toward intuitive thinking, mentalizing, dualism, and teleological thinking predicted a variety of beliefs about karma-including morally laden, non-agentic, and agentic conceptualizations-above and beyond the variability explained by cultural learning about karma across cultures. These results provide further evidence for an independent role for both culture and cognition in supporting diverse types of supernatural beliefs in distinct cultural contexts.

Cognitive styles and religion

I discuss recent research suggesting that individual differences in cognitive style give rise to and explain religious and related supernatural and paranormal beliefs. To do so, I illustrate intuitive cognitive biases (e.g., anthropomorphism) underlying these beliefs and then review the accumulated evidence indicating that non-believers are more open-minded, reflective, and less susceptible to holding epistemically suspect beliefs (e.g., conspiracy theories) on average than those who believe in supernatural events or paranormal experiences such as astrology or magic. However, seeing religion as a search for truth positively predicts reasoning performance. Although these findings are robust across diverse measures, evidence for a causal relationship remains mixed. Stronger and more precise manipulations and cross-cultural investigations are needed.

How cultural learning and cognitive biases shape religious beliefs

What explains the ubiquity and diversity of religions around the world? Widespread cognitive tendencies, including mentalizing and intuitive thinking, offer part of the explanation for recurrent features of religion, and individual differences in religious commitments. However, vast diversity in religious beliefs points to the importance of the cultural context in which religious beliefs are transmitted. Cultural evolutionary theory provides the basis of a unified explanation for how cognition and culture interact to shape religious beliefs, in ways that are uniquely adapted to local ecological pressures. These insights lay the groundwork for future research regarding how cultural learning interacts with other evolved aspects of human psychology to generate the recurrent and the diverse forms of religious commitments observed around the world.

Religious belief and cognitive conflict sensitivity: A preregistered fMRI study

In the current preregistered fMRI study, we investigated the relationship between religiosity and behavioral and neural mechanisms of conflict processing, as a conceptual replication of the study by Inzlicht et al., (2009). Participants (N=193) performed a gender-Stroop task and afterwards completed standardized measures to assess their religiosity. As expected, the task induced cognitive conflict at the behavioral level and at a neural level this was reflected in increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). However, individual differences in religiosity were not related to performance on the Stroop task as measured in accuracy and interference effects, nor to neural markers of response conflict (correct responses vs. errors) or informational conflict (congruent vs. incongruent stimuli). Overall, we obtained moderate to strong evidence in favor of the null hypotheses that religiosity is unrelated to cognitive conflict sensitivity. We discuss the implications for the neuroscience of religion and emphasize the importance of designing studies that more directly implicate religious concepts and behaviors in an ecologically valid manner.

Paranormal beliefs and individual differences: story seeking without reasoned review

In a sample of 599 participants (60% female, 18-81 years), we tested the hypotheses that cognitive ability and the big-six personality traits suffice to explain the individual-difference component of paranormal beliefs (belief in magic, astrology, esoterism, supernatural beings, and spirituality). Additionally, we measured 14 other potential predictors that were found to correlate with paranormal beliefs in prior research (e.g., ontological confusion). Although cognitive ability and the big-six explained 10% of the variance in individual belief, ontological confusion and causality understanding also were significant predictors in regression analyses. The resulting model, explaining 19 % of variance, consists of ontological confusion, cognitive ability (negative correlation), openness to new experiences, emotionality, conscientiousness (neg. corr.) and causality understanding (neg. corr.). We discuss the findings with reference to two hypothetical factors that drive individuals' acceptance of paranormal beliefs, inclination for story-telling, and tendency to evaluate belief content in terms of reason and conscientious evaluation.

Attribution of Mental States in Glossolalia: A Direct Comparison With Schizophrenia

Glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”) is a rhythmic utterance of pseudo-words without consistent semantic meaning and syntactic regularities. Although glossolalia is a culturally embedded religious activity, its connection with psychopathology (e.g., psychotic thought disorder and altered mental state attribution/mentalization) is still a matter of debate. To elucidate this issue, we investigated 32 glossolalists, 32 matched control participants, and 32 patients with schizophrenia using the Animated Triangle Test (ATT) and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). The ATT can detect hypo- and hypermentalization using animations of two moving triangles. Healthy adults describe these as random movements (e.g., bouncing), willed actions (e.g., playing), or they mentalize (e.g., tricking). We found that glossolalists provided more mentalizing descriptions in the ATT random and intentional movement animations relative to the control participants. They also recognized more mental states in the RMET than the controls. None of them had a diagnosis of mental disorders. In contrast, patients with schizophrenia hypermentalized only in the ATT random movement condition, whereas they showed hypomentalization in the ATT intentional movement condition and in the RMET relative the control subjects. Hypermentalization in the ATT positively correlated with intrinsic religiosity in the glossolalia group. In conclusion, our results demonstrated a substantial difference in the mentalizing ability of glossolalists (generalized hypermentalization) and patients with schizophrenia (both hypo- and hypermentalization).

Cognitive Biases and Religious Belief: A Path Model Replication in the Czech Republic and Slovakia With a Focus on Anthropomorphism

We examined cognitive biases that underlie individual differences in supernatural beliefs in nationally representative samples from the Czech Republic and Slovakia (total N = 2,022). These countries were chosen because of their differing levels of religious belief despite their cultural similarity. Replicating a previous study with North American samples, we found that anthropomorphism was unrelated to belief in God but was consistently related to paranormal beliefs. Living in a highly religious area was related to a lower tendency to anthropomorphize. We examined this relationship further to find that anthropomorphism was related to belief in God for nonreligious participants, was inversely related to belief in God among religious Slovaks, and not related for religious Czechs. These findings suggest that anthropomorphism predicts belief in God for people who are unaffiliated, but this relationship disappears or is reversed for religious believers participating in a Christian religious tradition.

Spirituality, dimensional autism, and schizotypal traits: The search for meaning

The relationships of spirituality with human social cognition, as exemplified in autism spectrum and schizophrenia spectrum cognitive variation, remain largely unstudied. We quantified non-clinical levels of autism spectrum and schizotypal spectrum traits (using the Autism Quotient and the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief Revised) and dimensions of spirituality (using the Hardt Spirituality Questionnaire) in a large sample of undergraduate students. We tested in particular the hypothesis, based on the diametrical model of autism and psychosis, that autism should be negatively associated, and positive schizotypal traits should be positively associated, with spirituality. Our primary findings were threefold. First, in support of the diametric model, total Spirituality score was significantly negatively correlated with total Autism Quotient score, and significantly positively correlated with Positive Schizotypal traits (the Schizotypal Personality Cognitive-Perceptual subscale), as predicted. Second, these associations were driven mainly by opposite patterns regarding the Search for Meaning Spirituality subscale, which was the only subscale that was significantly negatively associated with autism, and significantly positively associated with Positive Schizotypal traits. Third, Belief in God was positively correlated with Positive Schizotypal traits, but was uncorrelated with autism traits. The opposite findings for Search for Meaning can be interpreted in the contexts of well-supported cognitive models for understanding autism in terms of weak central coherence, and understanding Positive Schizotypal traits in terms of enhanced salience.

Autism and Religious Beliefs: Clues from Kafka Research

Religious beliefs and faith in high-functioning autistic persons are analyzed by discussing the work and biography of Franz Kafka. It enables researchers to differentiate between how autistic and non-autistic persons experience and express religious beliefs and spiritual issues because Kafka as an autistic person also wrote about these topics in his philosophical-religious writings. This Franz Kafka case study provides additional inner (cognitive) state input to better understand high-functioning autism. This contribution with new and different perspectives to the field of autism and religious beliefs could help to explore the varieties of religious experience and cognition, and to improve our insights in high-functioning autism.

Are Psychotic Experiences Related to Poorer Reflective Reasoning?

Background: Cognitive biases play an important role in the formation and maintenance of delusions. These biases are indicators of a weak reflective mind, or reduced engaging in reflective and deliberate reasoning. In three experiments, we tested whether a bias to accept non-sense statements as profound, treat metaphorical statements as literal, and suppress intuitive responses is related to psychotic-like experiences.

Methods: We tested deliberate reasoning and psychotic-like experiences in the general population and in patients with a former psychotic episode. Deliberate reasoning was assessed with the bullshit receptivity scale, the ontological confabulation scale and the cognitive reflection test (CRT). We also measured algorithmic performance with the Berlin numeracy test and the wordsum test. Psychotic-like experiences were measured with the Community Assessment of Psychic Experience (CAPE-42) scale.

Results: Psychotic-like experiences were positively correlated with a larger receptivity toward bullshit, more ontological confabulations, and also a lower score on the CRT but not with algorithmic task performance. In the patient group higher psychotic-like experiences significantly correlated with higher bullshit receptivity.

Conclusion: Reduced deliberate reasoning may contribute to the formation of delusions, and be a general thinking bias largely independent of a person's general intelligence. Acceptance of bullshit may be facilitated the more positive symptoms a patient has, contributing to the maintenance of the delusions.

Brains, language and the argumentative mind in Western and Eastern societies. The fertile differences between Western-Eastern argumentative traditions

The philosophical differences between Western and Eastern philosophy not only derive from general cultural ideas about reality, but as Nisbet writes (2003), are also methodological, ontological, and cognitively driven. Thus, we can see that strategies of thought and theory-generation are constrained and enabled by conceptual levels, and that the existence of differences and within these levels may be pragmatically combined in fruitful ways. At this point, I remark that there is not a single way to connect biology and culture, but at least we need to admit that brains allow the existence of minds and that these create languages, which also organize the world symbolically following a long set of (sometimes interconnected) heuristics. Throughout the paper we will see how fundamental, geographically located cultural perspectives have affected reasoning strategies and discourses, determining the main Western and Eastern Traditions. At the same time, we can conclude that different traditional perspectives allow more diversity for knowledge acquisition.

Empathizers and systemizers process social information differently

Using the empathizing-systemizing theory as our framework, we investigated how people with high self-reported empathizing (having good social skills and being interested in people) and systemizing (being interested in physical things and processes) differ in the social information processing of emotionally negative photographs of people during "spontaneous watching" and emotional and cognitive empathy tasks. Empathizers evaluated the pictures as more emotionally touching and the reactions in the photographs more understandable than the systemizers. Compared to the empathizers, systemizers had stronger activations in the posterior cingulate cortex, an area related to cognitive empathy, as well as in the left superior temporal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus when watching emotional photographs spontaneously. During guided emotional and cognitive empathy tasks, these differences disappeared. However, during the emotional empathy task, higher systemizing was associated with weaker activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus /insula. Furthermore, during emotional and cognitive empathy tasks, empathizing was related to increased activations of the amygdala which were in turn related to higher behavioral ratings of emotional and cognitive empathy. The results suggest that empathizers and systemizers engage in social information processing differently: systemizers in more cognitive terms and empathizers with stronger automatic emotional reactions.

Mentalizing skills do not differentiate believers from non-believers, but credibility enhancing displays do

The ability to mentalize has been marked as an important cognitive mechanism enabling belief in supernatural agents. In five studies we cross-culturally investigated the relationship between mentalizing and belief in supernatural agents with large sample sizes (over 67,000 participants in total) and different operationalizations of mentalizing. The relative importance of mentalizing for endorsing supernatural beliefs was directly compared with credibility enhancing displays-the extent to which people observed credible religious acts during their upbringing. We also compared autistic with neurotypical adolescents. The empathy quotient and the autism-spectrum quotient were not predictive of belief in supernatural agents in all countries (i.e., The Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States), although we did observe a curvilinear effect in the United States. We further observed a strong influence of credibility enhancing displays on belief in supernatural agents. These findings highlight the importance of cultural learning for acquiring supernatural beliefs and ask for reconsiderations of the importance of mentalizing.

Religious People Endorse Different Standards of Evidence When Evaluating Religious Versus Scientific Claims

Recent research has begun to investigate the relationship between religion and science. However, it remains unclear whether religious and nonreligious people differ on the standards of evidence used when evaluating claims in religious versus scientific contexts. Across three studies ( N = 702), we presented participants with effects that were attributed to scientific methodology or to God and asked them to rate how many more times an effect needs to be repeated in order to have certainty in the outcome. Results showed that religious people requested fewer repetitions compared to nonreligious people when an effect was attributed to prayer, and fewer repetitions when an effect was attributed to prayer compared to scientific methodology. Nonreligious people were relatively consistent across conditions. These results suggest that religious people have less stringent standards of evidence when evaluating nonscientific claims. Directions for future research are also discussed.

The self-attribution bias and paranormal beliefs

The present study investigated the relation between paranormal beliefs, illusory control and the self-attribution bias, i.e., the motivated tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself while negative outcomes are externalized. Visitors of a psychic fair played a card guessing game and indicated their perceived control over randomly selected cards as a function of the congruency and valence of the card. A stronger self-attribution bias was observed for paranormal believers compared to skeptics and this bias was specifically related to traditional religious beliefs and belief in superstition. No relation between paranormal beliefs and illusory control was found. Self-report measures indicated that paranormal beliefs were associated to being raised in a spiritual family and to anomalous experiences during childhood. Thereby this study suggests that paranormal beliefs are related to specific cognitive biases that in turn are shaped by socio-cultural factors.

You get what you give: children's karmic bargaining

Do children believe in karma - the notion that life events occur to punish or reward our moral behavior? In three experiments, we investigate 4-6-year-old children's willingness to endorse and engage in the practice of performing good acts in order to secure an unrelated future desired outcome, so-called 'karmic bargaining'. Most children agreed that performing a morally good social behavior, but not a morally negative or morally neutral non-social behavior, would increase the chances that future desired outcomes would occur, in both first-party and third-party contexts. About half of children also engaged in karmic bargaining behavior themselves. We conclude that a belief in karma may therefore reflect a broad, early-emerging teleological bias to interpret life events in terms of agency, purpose, and design.

Validation of the French Autism Spectrum Quotient scale and its relationships with schizotypy and Eysenckian personality traits

BACKGROUND

Autism and schizophrenia spectra were long considered distinct entities. Yet, recent studies emphasized overlapping clinical and personality features suggesting common mechanisms and liabilities. Independent notions, however, highlight that the two spectra oppose each other socially (positive schizotypal hyper-mentalism versus autistic hypo-mentalism).

METHODS

To clarify these relationships, we used data from 921 French-speaking Swiss undergraduates to firstly validate the French Autism Spectrum Questionnaire (AQ) identifying an optimal factor structure. Secondly, we assessed relationships between this AQ structure and schizotypic personality traits.

RESULTS

Results from correlational and principal component analyses replicated both overlapping and opposing relationships.

CONCLUSIONS

We conjecture that autistic traits opposing positive schizotypy represent autistic mentalizing deficits. We discuss implications of our findings relative to theories of autism and schizophrenia spectrum relationships.

Childrens' left-turning preference is not modulated by magical ideation

The literature on human turning preferences is inconsistent. While the few studies with children below 14 years of age uniformly describe an overall left-turning (counterclockwise) tendency, a recent Internet study with more than 1500 adults found a right-sided (clockwise) bias. We set out to investigate spontaneous turning behaviour in children age 5-3 years and, based on neuropsychiatric work in adults, also explored a potential association with magical thinking. Findings indicated a clear left-turning preference, independent of a participant's sex and handedness. Whether a child responded a question about the existence of extrasensory communication in the affirmative or not was unrelated to direction and size of turning bias and lateral preference. Our results are consistent with a left-sided turning preference reported for children, but in opposition to the clockwise bias recently described in a large-scale study with adults. Whether they point to a maturational gradient in the preferred direction of spontaneous whole-body rotation or rather to a lack of comparability between measures used in observational versus Internet-based studies remains to be further investigated. Regarding a purported association between body turns and magical thinking, our study is preliminary, as only one single question was used to probe the latter.

Atheists and Agnostics Are More Reflective than Religious Believers: Four Empirical Studies and a Meta-Analysis

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.

Skepticism: Genuine unbelief or implicit beliefs in the supernatural?

We examined whether skeptics hold implicit supernatural beliefs or implicit cognitive underpinnings of the beliefs. In study 1 (N=57), participants read a biological or a religious story about death. The story content had no effect on skeptics' (or believers') afterlife beliefs. Study 2 examined the relationships between religious and non-religious paranormal beliefs and implicit views about whether supernatural and religious phenomena are imaginary or real (n1=33, n2=31). The less supernatural beliefs were endorsed the easier it was to connect "supernatural" with "imaginary". Study 3 (N=63) investigated whether participants' supernatural beliefs and ontological confusions differ between speeded and non-speeded response conditions. Only non-analytical skeptics' ontological confusions increased in speeded conditions. The results indicate that skeptics overall do not hold implicit supernatural beliefs, but that non-analytically thinking skeptics may, under supporting conditions, be prone to biases that predispose to supernatural beliefs.

Let us be careful with the evidence on mentalizing, cognitive biases, and religious beliefs

Norenzayan et al.'s theoretical synthesis is highly plausible and commendable. However, the empirical evidence for the arguments on mentalizing, cognitive biases, and religious belief is currently not as strong as the writers suggest. Although certainly abundant and compelling, this evidence is indirect, contradictory, and weak and must be acknowledged as such. More direct studies are needed to support the theory.

The role of magical thinking in forecasting the future

This article explores the role of magical thinking in the subjective probabilities of future chance events. In five experiments, we show that individuals tend to predict a more lucky future (reflected in probability judgements of lucky and unfortunate chance events) for someone who happened to purchase a product associated with a highly moral person than for someone who unknowingly purchased a product associated with a highly immoral person. In the former case, positive events were considered more likely than negative events, whereas in the latter case, the difference in the likelihood judgement of positive and negative events disappeared or even reversed. Our results indicate that this effect is unlikely to be driven by participants' immanent justice beliefs, the availability heuristic, or experimenter demand. Finally, we show that individuals rely more heavily on magical thinking when their need for control is threatened, thus suggesting that lack of control represents a factor in driving magical thinking in making predictions about the future.

On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit

Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception (critical or ingenuous) has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief). Parallel associations were less evident among profundity judgments for more conventionally profound (e.g., “A wet person does not fear the rain”) or mundane (e.g., “Newborn babies require constant attention”) statements. These results support the idea that some people are more receptive to this type of bullshit and that detecting it is not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims. Our results also suggest that a bias toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity.