New research published in Applied Cognitive Psychology provides evidence that critical thinking skills are negatively related to belief in conspiracy theories.
Not only have these tools mostly not been scientifically tested, but to our knowledge, the idea that people who believe more in conspiracy theories have less developed critical thinking ability had never been properly tested.
This opportunity came about because, due to circumstances, one of my co-authors took the time to translate a critical thinking ability test in French.”.
In addition, the participants were asked if they thought there was a relationship between belief in conspiracy theories and critical thinking ability.
First, the more people believe in conspiracy theories, the worse they perform on a critical thinking ability test.
This test is characterized by an open-ended format highlighting several areas of critical thinking ability in the context of argumentation,” Lantian told PsyPost.
The study, “Maybe a Free Thinker but not a Critical One: High Conspiracy Belief is Associated With low Critical Thinking Ability“, was authored by Anthony Lantian, Virginie Bagneux, Sylvain Delouvée, and Nicolas Gauvrit. »