Objective: Vaccine hesitancy has been identified as one of the major contributors to child under-vaccination. Research indicates that some hesitant parents’ mistrust extends to specific conspiracy ideation, but research on vaccine conspiracy beliefs is still scarce. Our objective was to explore factors contributing to parental vaccine conspiracy beliefs and actual vaccine uptake in children. Design: A cross-sectional correlational design with a non-probabilistic sample of 823 volunteer participants surveyed online. Main outcome measures: We focussed on the contributions of the analytically rational and experientially intuitive thinking styles, as well as measures of emotional functioning, namely optimism and emotions towards vaccination, to vaccine conspiracy beliefs and vaccine uptake as outcomes. Results: The obtained results showed that greater vaccine conspiracy beliefs were associated with stronger unpleasant emotions towards vaccination and greater experientially intuitive thinking, as well as lower levels of education. Furthermore, unpleasant emotions towards vaccination and intuitive thinking were associated with vaccine refusal. Conclusion: These findings confirm the primary importance of emotions, along with the propensity towards intuitive thinking, in the context of vaccine conspiracy beliefs and refusal, supporting the notion that parents’ avoidance is guided by their affect. These results have direct implications for addressing vaccine hesitancy within public campaigns and policies.

Economic inequality is associated with preferences for smaller, immediate gains over larger, delayed ones. Such temporal discounting may feed into rising global inequality, yet it is unclear whether it is a function of choice preferences or norms, or rather the absence of sufficient resources for immediate needs. It is also not clear whether these reflect true differences in choice patterns between income groups. We tested temporal discounting and five intertemporal choice anomalies using local currencies and value standards in 61 countries (N = 13,629). Across a diverse sample, we found consistent, robust rates of choice anomalies. Lower-income groups were not significantly different, but economic inequality and broader financial circumstances were clearly correlated with population choice patterns.

The aim of the study was to test convergent/discriminant validity of two measures of cognitive reflection, cognitive reflection test (CRT) and belief bias syllogisms (BBS) and to investigate whether their distinctive characteristic of luring participants into giving wrong intuitive responses explains their relationships with various abilities and disposition measures. Our results show that the same traits largely account for performance on both non-lure task, the Berlin Numeracy Test (BNT), and CRT and explain their correlations with other variables. These results also imply that the predictive validity of CRT for wide range of outcomes does not stem from lures. Regarding the BBS, we found that its correlations with other measures were substantially diminished once we accounted for the effects of BNT. This also implies that the lures are not the reason for the correlation between BBS and these measure. We conclude that the lures are not the reason why cognitive reflection tasks correlate with different outcomes. Our results call into question an original definition of CRT as a measure of ability or disposition to resist reporting first response that comes to mind, as well as the validity of results of studies showing “incremental validity” of CRT over numeracy.

The aim of the study was to investigate the role that cognitive abilities, rational thinking abilities, cognitive styles and self-control play in explaining the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs among university students. A total of 159 students participated in the study. We found that different aspects of rational thought (i.e. rational thinking abilities and cognitive styles) and self-control, but not intelligence, significantly predicted the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs. Based on these findings, it may be suggested that intelligence and rational thinking, although related, represent two fundamentally different constructs. Thus, deviations from rational thinking could be well described by the term “dysrationalia”, meaning the inability to think rationally despite having adequate intelligence. We discuss the implications of the results, as well as some drawbacks of the study.

Across three studies and three different samples, we investigated whether decision-making styles exhibit incremental validity in predicting various real-life outcomes over and above cognitive abilities and personality traits. In Study 1, we showed that decision-making styles (especially avoidant and spontaneous ones) but not cognitive abilities predict important real-life and academic outcomes in a sample of undergraduate students. In Study 2, on a sample of employed adults, we showed that although the effects of decision-making styles decreased once the effects of personality traits were taken into account, styles nevertheless remained important for several important work-related outcomes. Finally, in Study 3, on a sample of entrepreneurs, decision-making styles generally exhibited stronger correlations with indices of entrepreneurial success and employee work-related attitudes than the need for achievement, a motivational trait that was meta-analytically shown to be one of the essential traits for entrepreneurial success. In sum, we hope that our research program fills the gap in research on individual differences in decision-making, offering evidence that decision-making styles matter for various important real-life outcomes.