Susceptibility to poor arguments: The interplay of cognitive sophistication and attitudes.

Despite everyday argumentation being crucial to human communication and decision-making, the cognitive determinants of argument evaluation are poorly known. This study examined how attitudes and aspects of cognitive sophistication, i.e., thinking styles and scientific literacy, relate to people's acceptance of poorly justified arguments (e.g., unwarranted appeals to naturalness) on controversial topics (e.g., genetically modified organisms (GMOs)). The participants were more accepting of poorly justified arguments that aligned with their attitudes compared to those that opposed their attitudes, and this was true regardless of one's thinking styles or level of scientific literacy. Still, most of the examined aspects of cognitive sophistication were also positively related to fallacy detection. The strongest cognitive predictors of correctly recognizing the fallacies were one's scientific reasoning ability and active open-mindedness. The results thus imply that decreasing misleading attitude effects, and increasing certain aspects of analytic and scientific thinking, could improve argumentation.

Universal Patterns in Color-Emotion Associations Are Further Shaped by Linguistic and Geographic Proximity.

Many of us "see red," "feel blue," or "turn green with envy." Are such color-emotion associations fundamental to our shared cognitive architecture, or are they cultural creations learned through our languages and traditions? To answer these questions, we tested emotional associations of colors in 4,598 participants from 30 nations speaking 22 native languages. Participants associated 20 emotion concepts with 12 color terms. Pattern-similarity analyses revealed universal color-emotion associations (average similarity coefficient r = .88). However, local differences were also apparent. A machine-learning algorithm revealed that nation predicted color-emotion associations above and beyond those observed universally. Similarity was greater when nations were linguistically or geographically close. This study highlights robust universal color-emotion associations, further modulated by linguistic and geographic factors. These results pose further theoretical and empirical questions about the affective properties of color and may inform practice in applied domains, such as well-being and design.

Empathizing and systemizing are differentially related to dimensions of autistic traits in the general population.

Empathizing-Systemizing Theory suggests that low empathizing and high systemizing are linked to autistic traits in the general population. Evidence from autistic individuals is convincing, but more research in the normal population is needed. Method: We conducted two surveys (N = 3,345) investigating the relationships between empathizing, systemizing and autistic traits in the general population, using a large variety of self-report instruments and direct performance tests. Results: Strong connections between autistic symptoms, empathizing, and systemizing were found using commonly used measures (Autism Quotient, Systemizing Quotient and Empathizing Quotient). Other measures on empathizing and systemizing found the connections that E-S-theory predicts, but the correlations were a lot more modest. Weak empathizing was related to autism's social difficulties, while systemizing was linked to non-social aspects of autism. Conclusions: The present results support the main tenets of empathizing-systemizing theory, but suggest that earlier findings might be inflated due to overlapping items in the most common assessment instruments.

Antecedentes/objetivo: La Teoría de la Empatía-Sistematización (E-S) sugiere que la baja empatía y la alta sistematización se relacionan con rasgos autistas en la población general. La evidencia científica en sujetos autistas es consistente, pero es necesaria investigación en población normativa. Método: Se realizaron dos investigaciones basadas en encuesta (N = 3.345) sobre la asociación entre empatía, sistematización y rasgos subclínicos autistas en población general haciendo uso de gran variedad de mediciones auto-informadas y pruebas de rendimiento. Resultados: Se hallaron fuertes relaciones consistentes con la teoría E-S entre rasgos autistas, empatía y sistematización de uso común, medidas con índices de uso común (Coeficiente del Espectro Autista, Coeficiente de Empatía y Coeficiente de Sistematización). En otros indicadores de empatía y sistematización se encontraron relaciones en concordancia con la teoría E-S, pero las correlaciones fueron mucho más modestas. Se obtuvo una relación entre baja empatía y las dificultades sociales propias del autismo, mientras que la sistematización se relacionó con aquellos aspectos no sociales del autismo. Conclusiones: Este trabajo corrobora los principios esenciales de la Teoría de la Empatía-Sistematización, pero sugiere a su vez que resultados previos pudieran estar sesgados debido al solapamiento de ítems en los instrumentos de medición más comúnmente usados.

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.

Intuitive physics ability in systemizers relies on differential use of the internalizing system and long-term spatial representations.

According to the Empathizing-Systemizing theory (E-S Theory), individual differences in how people understand the physical world (systemizing) and the social world (empathizing), are two continuums in the general population with several implications, from vocational interests to skills in the social and physical domains. The underlying mechanisms of intuitive physics performance among individuals with strong systemizing and weak empathizing (systemizers) are, however, unknown. Our results affirm higher intuitive physics skills in healthy adult systemizers (N=36), and further reveal the brain mechanisms that are characteristic for those individuals in carrying out such tasks. When the participants performed intuitive physics tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging, combined higher systemizing and lower empathizing was associated with stronger activations in parts of the default mode network (DMN, cuneus and posterior cingulate gyrus), middle occipital gyrus, and parahippocampal region. The posterior cingulate gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus were specifically associated with systemizing "brain type" even after controlling for task performance, while especially in the parietal cortex, the activation changes were simply explained by higher task performance. We therefore suggest that utilization of DMN-parahippocampal complex, suggested to play a role in internalizing and activating long-term spatial memory representations, is the factor that distinguishes systemizers from empathizers with the opposite "brain type" in intuitive physics tasks.

Intuitive and Deliberative Empathizers and Systemizers.

OBJECTIVE: Recent findings suggest there may be some overlap between individual differences in orientations for intuitive thinking and empathizing, and between deliberative thinking and systemizing. This overlap is surprising, given that intuitive and deliberative thinking derive from dual-process theories that concern domain-general types of processing, whereas theoretically, empathizing and systemizing are domain-specific orientations for understanding people and lawful physical phenomena. METHOD: The present studies (Study 1: N = 2,789, Study 2: N = 87; Finnish volunteers ages 15-69, 65% females) analyzed each of these four constructs using self-report as well as performance measures. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analysis showed that systemizing was strongly and positively related to deliberative thinking and negatively related to intuitive thinking. Empathizing was negatively related to deliberative thinking, whereas no association between empathizing and intuition was found. However, some deliberative aspects and some intuitive aspects were involved in empathizing. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that a distinction between "intuitive empathizing" and "deliberative systemizing" is not warranted.

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.

Attributes of God: Conceptual Foundations of a Foundational Belief.

Anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human properties to nonhuman entities, is often posited as an explanation for the origin and nature of God concepts, but it remains unclear which human properties we tend to attribute to God and under what conditions. In three studies, participants decided whether two types of human properties-psychological (mind-dependent) properties and physiological (body-dependent) properties-could or could not be attributed to God. In Study 1 (n = 1,525), participants made significantly more psychological attributions than physiological attributions, and the frequency of those attributions was correlated both with participants' religiosity and with their attribution of abstract, theological properties. In Study 2 (n = 99) and Study 3 (n = 138), participants not only showed the same preference for psychological properties but were also significantly faster, more consistent, and more confident when attributing psychological properties to God than when attributing physiological properties. And when denying properties to God, they showed the reverse pattern-that is, they were slower, less consistent, and less confident when denying psychological properties than when denying physiological properties. These patterns were observed both in a predominantly Christian population (Study 2) and a predominantly Hindu population (Study 3). Overall, we argue that God is conceptualized not as a person in general but as an agent in particular, attributed a mind by default but attributed a body only upon further consideration.

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

The current research tested the hypothesis that the abilities for understanding other people's minds give rise to the cognitive biases that underlie supernatural beliefs. We used structural equation modeling (N=2789) to determine the roles of various mentalizing tendencies, namely self-reported affective and cognitive empathy (i.e., mind reading), actual cognitive and affective empathic abilities, hyper-empathizing, and two cognitive biases (core ontological confusions and promiscuous teleology) in giving rise to supernatural beliefs. Support for a path from mentalizing abilities through cognitive biases to supernatural beliefs was weak. The relationships of mentalizing abilities with supernatural beliefs were also weak, and these relationships were not substantially mediated by cognitive biases. Core ontological confusions emerged as the best predictor, while promiscuous teleology predicted only a small proportion of variance. The results were similar for religious beliefs, paranormal beliefs, and for belief in supernatural purpose.

Supernatural believers attribute more intentions to random movement than skeptics: an fMRI study.

A host of research has attempted to explain why some believe in the supernatural and some do not. One suggested explanation for commonly held supernatural beliefs is that they are a by-product of theory of mind (ToM) processing. However, this does not explain why skeptics with intact ToM processes do not believe. We employed fMRI to investigate activation differences in ToM-related brain circuitries between supernatural believers (N = 12) and skeptics (N = 11) while they watched 2D animations of geometric objects moving intentionally or randomly and rated the intentionality of the animations. The ToM-related circuitries in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) were localized by contrasting intention-rating-related and control-rating-related brain activation. Compared with the skeptics, the supernatural believers rated the random movements as more intentional and had stronger activation of the ToM-related circuitries during the animation with random movement. The strength of the ToM-related activation covaried with the intentionality ratings. These findings provide evidence that differences in ToM-related activations are associated with supernatural believers' tendency to interpret random phenomena in mental terms. Thus, differences in ToM processing may contribute to differences between believing and unbelieving.

The separate roles of the reflective mind and involuntary inhibitory control in gatekeeping paranormal beliefs and the underlying intuitive confusions.

Intuitive thinking is known to predict paranormal beliefs, but the processes underlying this relationship, and the role of other thinking dispositions, have remained unclear. Study 1 showed that while an intuitive style increased and a reflective disposition counteracted paranormal beliefs, the ontological confusions suggested to underlie paranormal beliefs were predicted by individual differences in involuntary inhibitory processes. When the reasoning system was subjected to cognitive load, the ontological confusions increased, lost their relationship with paranormal beliefs, and their relationship with weaker inhibition was strongly accentuated. These findings support the argument that the confusions are mainly intuitive and that they therefore are most discernible under conditions in which inhibition is impaired, that is, when thinking is dominated by intuitive processing. Study 2 replicated the findings on intuitive and reflective thinking and paranormal beliefs. In Study 2, ontological confusions were also related to the same thinking styles as paranormal beliefs. The results support a model in which both intuitive and non-reflective thinking styles and involuntary inhibitory processes give way to embracing culturally acquired paranormal beliefs.

Is it just a brick wall or a sign from the universe? An fMRI study of supernatural believers and skeptics.

We examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging the brain activity of 12 supernatural believers and 11 skeptics who first imagined themselves in critical life situations (e.g. problems in intimate relationships) and then watched emotionally charged pictures of lifeless objects and scenery (e.g. two red cherries bound together). Supernatural believers reported seeing signs of how the situations were going to turn out in the pictures more often than skeptics did. Viewing the pictures activated the same brain regions among all participants (e.g. the left inferior frontal gyrus, IFG). However, the right IFG, previously associated with cognitive inhibition, was activated more strongly in skeptics than in supernatural believers, and its activation was negatively correlated to sign seeing in both participant groups. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on the universal processes that may underlie supernatural beliefs and the role of cognitive inhibition in explaining individual differences in such beliefs.

Conceptions about the mind-body problem and their relations to afterlife beliefs, paranormal beliefs, religiosity, and ontological confusions.

We examined lay people's conceptions about the relationship between mind and body and their correlates. In Study 1, a web survey (N = 850) of reflective dualistic, emergentistic, and monistic perceptions of the mind-body relationship, afterlife beliefs (i.e., common sense dualism), religiosity, paranormal beliefs, and ontological confusions about physical, biological, and psychological phenomena was conducted. In Study 2 (N = 73), we examined implicit ontological confusions and their relations to afterlife beliefs, paranormal beliefs, and religiosity. Correlation and regression analyses showed that reflective dualism, afterlife beliefs, paranormal beliefs, and religiosity were strongly and positively related and that reflective dualism and afterlife beliefs mediated the relationship between ontological confusions and religious and paranormal beliefs. The results elucidate the contention that dualism is a manifestation of universal cognitive processes related to intuitions about physical, biological, and psychological phenomena by showing that especially individuals who confuse the distinctive attributes of these phenomena tend to set the mind apart from the body.

Distinguishing spirituality from other constructs: not a matter of well-being but of belief in supernatural spirits.

We developed a new Spirituality Scale and tested the argument that the defining attribute of spirituality is belief in supernatural spirits. Study 1 (N = 1931) showed that religiosity and beliefs pertinent to supernatural spirits predicted most of the variation in spirituality. Study 2 (N = 848) showed that the stronger belief in supernatural spirits, the more the person experienced subjective spirituality; that belief in supernatural spirits had higher predictive value of spirituality than religiosity, paranormal beliefs, or values; and that most of the relationship between religiosity and spirituality could be explained through belief in supernatural spirits. Study 3 (N = 972) showed that mental or physical health, social relationships, or satisfaction in marriage or work were not associated with spirituality. In turn, finding life purposeful and inner peace in dealing with spiritual experiences correlated with spirituality. The results highlight the importance of differentiating spirituality from other psychological constructs.

Biases in intuitive reasoning and belief in complementary and alternative medicine.

Very little is known about the reasoning underlying beliefs in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This study examined whether CAM beliefs can be better explained with intuitive reasoning, paranormal beliefs and ontological confusions of physical, biological and mental phenomena than with 12 variables that have typically been used to explore the popularity of CAM, namely gender, education, income, age, health, desire to control treatment, satisfaction with conventional medicine and world view (unconventional, feministic, environmentalist, exotical and natural). A representative sample of Finnish people (N = 1092) participated in the study. The results showed that intuitive thinking, paranormal beliefs and ontological confusions predicted 34% of the variation in CAM beliefs, whereas the 12 other variables increased the prediction only by 4%. The results help to explain individual, cultural and situational differences in the popularity of CAM and to differentiate between CAM statements that can be scientifically examined from those that cannot.

Who is responsible for food risks? The influence of risk type and risk characteristics.

The influence of food risk type and risk characteristics on food risk responsibility judgments was studied. A total of 1270 Finnish consumers judged their personal responsibility and the responsibility of three non-personal targets, industry, retail, and society, in relation to six food-related risks. They also evaluated the risks on several psychometric dimensions. The ratings were gathered via internet questionnaire. Industry and society were considered to be most responsible for all risks but the risk of cardiovascular disease, for which personal responsibility was considered to be highest. Judgments of personal controllability predicted personal responsibility judgments, and unnaturalness judgments predicted non-personal targets' judged responsibility. Personal responsibility judgments were related to different risk dimensions than judgments of non-personal targets' responsibility.

The moderating effect of conformism values on the relations between other personal values, social norms, moral obligation, and single altruistic behaviours.

Three studies predicted and found that the individual's conformism values are one determinant of whether behaviour is guided by other personal values or by social norms. In Study 1 (N=50), pro-gay law reform participants were told they were either in a minority or a majority in terms of their attitude towards the law reform. Only participants who were high in conformism values conformed to the group norm on public behaviour intentions. In studies 2 (N=42) and 3 (N=734), participants played multiple choice prisoner's dilemma games with monetary incentives. Only participants who considered conformism values to be relatively unimportant showed the expected connections between universalism values and altruistic behaviour. Study 3 also established that the moderating effect of conformism values on the relation between universalism values and altruistic behaviour was mediated through experienced sense of moral obligation.

Sentences with core knowledge violations increase the size of N400 among paranormal believers.

A major problem in research on paranormal beliefs is that the concept of "paranormality" remains to be adequately defined. The aim of this study was to empirically justify the following definition: paranormal beliefs are beliefs in physical, biological, or psychological phenomena that contain core ontological attributes of one of the other two categories [e.g., a stone (physical) having thoughts (psychological)]. We hypothesized that individuals who believe in paranormal phenomena are slower in understanding whether sentences with core knowledge violations are literally true than skeptics, and that this difference would be reflected by a more negative N400. Ten believers and 10 skeptics (six men, age range 23-49) participated in the study. Event-related potentials (N400) were recorded as the participants read 210 three-word Finnish sentences, of which 70 were normal ("The house has a history"), 70 were anomalies ("The house writes its history") and 70 included violations of core knowledge ("The house knows its history"). The participants were presented with a question that contextualized the sentences: "Is this sentence literally true?" While the N400 effects were similar for normal and anomalous sentences among the believers and the skeptics, a more negative N400 effect was found among the believers than among the skeptics for sentences with core knowledge violations. The results support the new definition of "paranormality", because participants who believed in paranormal phenomena appeared to find it more difficult to construct a reasonable interpretation of the sentences with core knowledge violations than the skeptics did as indicated by the N400.