Two simple cognitive tendencies emerge as surprisingly powerful predictors of belief in pseudoscience

Two simple cognitive tendencies emerge as surprisingly powerful predictors of belief in pseudoscience

People who are more likely to endorse pseudoscientific beliefs tend to report experiencing meaningful coincidences more often and are also more likely to misrepresent random events as non-random. These findings, published in Applied Cognitive Psychology, suggest that belief in pseudoscience may stem from cognitive tendencies related to how people interpret everyday events and assess patterns. Previous research had already found that people who b…