Browsing by Subject "Intuitive thinking"

Recent evidence suggests paranormal and religious beliefs may result from cognitive biases that all humans share. People who think in an intuitive manner are supposedly more affected by these biases than analytical people. Consequently, mounting evidence suggests those who endorse intuitive thinking style tend to be more religious and have more paranormal beliefs than people with an analytic thinking style. However, less attention has been paid to people who are highly analytical but nevertheless have supernatural beliefs. Since analytical people should be less susceptible to cognitive biases, other factors such as metacognitive tendencies might account for these beliefs. On the other hand, if intuitive thinking style is a major causal factor behind paranormal beliefs, an intuitive sub-group among sceptics could be considered an anomaly. Metacognitive tendencies could be a potential psychological factor behind scepticism. A sample of nearly 3000 Finnish participants revealed that there was an analytical and intuitive subgroup among the believers and sceptics. Particularly, analytic believers had more cognitive biases and lesser tendency to belief flexibility than analytic sceptics. Intuitive sceptics had more cognitive biases than analytic sceptics but they adhered more to flexible thinking than intuitive believers. The results of this thesis underline the multifarious nature of both paranormal beliefs and thinking styles. Although analytical thinking may help the person to overcome the automatic and often erroneous shortcuts that the mind produces, it may fail to suppress overlearned and reflectively practiced beliefs. On the other hand, an intuitive thinking style and cognitive biases may not necessary lead to paranormal believing, especially if the living environment encourages a sceptic worldview. Future studies should address the mechanisms that lead individuals with similar epistemological tendencies to acquire totally different metaphysical beliefs.