Examining the relationship between metacognitive trust in thinking styles and supernatural beliefs

Abstract

Conflicting findings have emerged from research on the relationship between thinking styles and supernatural beliefs. In two studies, we examined this relationship through meta-cognitive trust and developed a new (1) experimental manipulation, a short scientific article describing the benefits of thinking styles, (2) trust in thinking styles measure, the Ambiguous Decisions task, and (3) supernatural belief measure, the Belief in Psychic Ability scale. In Study 1 (N=415) we found differences in metacognitive trust in thinking styles between the analytical and intuitive condition, and overall higher analytical scores. We also found stronger correlations between thinking style measures and psychic ability and paranormal beliefs than with religious beliefs, but a mixed-effect linear regression showed little to no variation in how measures of thinking style related to types of supernatural beliefs. In Study 2, we replicated Study 1 with participants from the United States, Canada, and Brazil (N=802), and found similar results, though Brazilian participants showed a reduced emphasis on analytical thinking. We conclude that our new design, task, and scale may be particularly useful for dual-processing research on supernatural belief.