Individual differences in epistemically suspect beliefs: The role of analytic thinking and susceptibility to cognitive biases.

The article focuses on the widespread endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs, such as paranormal, conspiracy, and pseudoscientific ideas, and the reasoning processes that contribute to this phenomenon. Two studies were conducted to develop a questionnaire assessing these beliefs and to explore the relationship between probabilistic reasoning biases, analytic thinking, and other variables like religious faith and political liberalism. The findings indicate that probabilistic reasoning biases and analytic thinking are significant predictors of these beliefs, while syllogistic belief bias primarily relates to pseudoscientific beliefs. The article emphasizes the need for further research on how biased evidence evaluation influences the endorsement of such beliefs. [Extracted from the article]