New research published in Applied Cognitive Psychology provides evidence that critical thinking skills are negatively related to belief in conspiracy theories. In other words, the study suggests that people with greater critical thinking skills are less likely to believe that terrorist attacks are being covertly directed by a country’s own government or that mind-control technology is secretly being used to control the population.
"Two things can be learned from our two studies. First, the more people believe in conspiracy theories, the worse they perform on a critical thinking ability test."
“Second, if we look at the subjective feeling of being a critical thinker (rather than the critical thinking ability evaluated more objectively by the test mentioned earlier) we did not find any evidence for a higher (or lower) subjective critical thinking ability among those who subscribe more to conspiracy theories. This is not in line with the cliché of the conspiracy theorists who see themselves as critical thinkers.”
See New study indicates conspiracy theory believers have less developed critical thinking abilities
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New research published in Applied Cognitive Psychology provides evidence that critical thinking skills are negatively related to belief in conspiracy …