Abstract
Previous studies have proposed that low evidential criteria or proneness to jump to conclusions influences the formation of paranormal beliefs. We investigated whether the low evidential criteria hypothesis for paranormal beliefs extends to a conceptually distinct type of unwarranted beliefs: those related to pseudoscience. We presented individuals varying in their endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs with two hypothesis testing tasks. In the beads task, the participants were asked to decide from which of two jars containing different proportions of colored beads they were collecting samples. In the mouse trap task, they were asked to guess which rule determined whether a participant-controlled mouse obtained a piece of cheese or was trapped. In both cases, the volunteers were free to decide when to stop collecting evidence before completing the tasks. Our results indicate that, compared to skeptics, individuals presenting stronger endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs tend to require less evidence before coming to a conclusion in hypothesis testing situations.
Highlights
Previous studies have proposed that low evidential criteria or proneness to jump to conclusions influences the formation of paranormal beliefs
We addressed the low evidential criteria hypothesis with regards to belief in pseudoscience by presenting volunteers varying in their endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs with the mouse trap task
We presented participants varying in their endorsement of pseudoscientific and paranormal beliefs with two tasks aimed to test the low evidential criteria hypothesis
Summary
Previous studies have proposed that low evidential criteria or proneness to jump to conclusions influences the formation of paranormal beliefs. Our results indicate that, compared to skeptics, individuals presenting stronger endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs tend to require less evidence before coming to a conclusion in hypothesis testing situations. A more skeptical individual may need more instances of cooccurrence to end up endorsing the causal belief These authors tested the low evidential criteria hypothesis by presenting volunteers varying in their endorsement of paranormal beliefs with a “differential reinforcement of low rates of responding task”[3] designed to induce superstitious behavior. Paranormal believers in Brugger and Graves’ study reported testing fewer hypotheses while completing the task They ended up believing in more hypotheses regarding the mouse’s success. Other relevant elements have been proposed (see the discussion of the doctrinal component by H ansson9) for many authors the identification of an activity as pseudoscientific
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