Journal
BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 111, Issue 4, Pages 840-852Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12441
Keywords
causal illusion; cognitive bias; illusion of causality; paranormal beliefs; pseudoscience; superstition
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Funding
- Agencia Estatal De Investigacion of the Spanish Government [PSI2016-75776-R, PSI2016-80061-R]
- European Regional Development Fund
- Catalan Government [2017SGR387]
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Causal illusion has been proposed as a cognitive mediator of pseudoscientific beliefs. However, previous studies have only tested the association between this cognitive bias and a closely related but different type of unwarranted beliefs, those related to superstition and paranormal phenomena. Participants (n = 225) responded to a novel questionnaire of pseudoscientific beliefs designed for this study. They also completed a contingency learning task in which a possible cause, infusion intake, and a desired effect, headache remission, were actually non-contingent. Volunteers with higher scores on the questionnaire also presented stronger causal illusion effects. These results support the hypothesis that causal illusions might play a fundamental role in the endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs.
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