Analytic-thinking predicts hoax beliefs and helping behaviors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak was labeled a global pandemic by the WHO in March of 2020. During that same month, the number of confirmed cases and the death rate grew exponentially in the United States, creating a serious publichealth emergency. Unfortunately, many Americans dismissed the pandemic as a hoax and failed to properly engage in helpful behaviors like social-distancing and increased hand-washing. Here, we examine a dispositionengagement in analytic-thinking-that might predict beliefs that the pandemic is a hoax and failures to change behavior in positive ways during that critical early period in March. Our results indicate that individuals less likely to engage effortful, deliberative, and reflective cognitive processes were more likely to believe the pandemic was a hoax and less likely to have recently engaged in social-distancing and hand-washing in March. We discuss possible implications of these results for understanding and addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Antecedents and consequences of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs: a systematic review

“…Moreover, for anyone from the general public, even needing to know such indepth epidemiological information is not only unusual but potentially out of reach. Belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories is associated with lower scientific 61 and analytical 10,13,23,36,61,[68][69][70][71] reasoning, and less correct knowledge but more false beliefs about COVID-19 61 . Similarly, low levels of education are frequently associated with belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories 9,15,27,28 .…”

Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world

“…In addition to these motivational factors, a growing literature has explored the role of ‘cognition’ in susceptibility to misinformation. Overall, a large literature finds that factors such as education [ 31 , 32 ], analytical thinking, numeracy skills, ‘bullshit receptivity’ and ‘intuitive’ versus ‘reflective’ thinking styles (often assessed via the cognitive reflection test) appear to play a consistent and key role in processing misinformation [ 10 , 14 , 33 – 39 ]. Following prior research [ 17 ], we included numeracy in the current study.…”

“…Aside from these more general predictors, recent research has evaluated public belief in and susceptibility to misinformation specifically about COVID-19 [ 27 , 39 – 42 ]. A recent study by Uscinski et al [ 41 ] found that beliefs in conspiracies about the virus are associated with a propensity to reject information from expert authorities, raising concerns about the potential for popular conspiracy theories to reduce people's willingness to comply with public health guidance.…”

“…First, we examine the effect of higher belief in misinformation about COVID-19 on people's willingness to get vaccinated against the disease and to recommend vulnerable friends and family members to get vaccinated [ 40 ]. Second, we explore how belief in COVID-19 misinformation influences the degree of current compliance with public health guidance such as wearing a mask in public [ 39 ]. 1 Our goal was not to build an exhaustive predictive model for compliance with public health guidance; rather, we sought to explore whether susceptibility to misinformation is a significant predictor of compliance with health guidance measures when controlling for other basic factors such as age, gender, education and political ideology.…”

Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 Hoax on the Mental Health of Millennial Moms

“…It would be severer when the users only read sporadically without comprehensively understanding them (Ku et al, 2019). Another finding showed that an individual that did not think critically would tend to spread COVID-19 hoaxed information (Stanley, Barr, Peters, & Seli, 2020). A study involving 1600 adult people in the United States of America showed that people shared false information dealing with COVID-19.…”