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Introduction
Jakub Šrol currently works at the Institute of Experimental Psychology, Slovak Academy of Sciences. Jakub does research in Cognitive Psychology. Their current project is 'Cognitive limts of effective information processing.'
Publications
Publications (38)
A recent study (Pennycook et al., 2015) found that the propensity to judge randomly generated, syntactically correct (i.e., bullshit) statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural beliefs). Besides generalizing these findings to a different cultural setting, we...
This study presents a psychometric evaluation of the Expanded Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT7) based on item response theory. The participants (N = 1204) completed the CRT7 and provided self-reported information about their cognitive styles through the Preference for Intuition and Deliberation Scale (PID). A two-parameter logistic model was fitted...
The study explores whether people are more inclined to accept a conclusion that confirms their prior beliefs and reject one they personally object to even when both follow the same logic. Most of the prior research in this area has relied on the informal reasoning paradigm; in this study, however, we applied a formal reasoning paradigm to distingui...
One of the current topics in research on the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is its growing familiarity among the general public. Surprisingly, Bialek and Pennycook (2017) showed that previous exposure does not diminish the CRT's predictive power in Heuristics and Biases (H&B) tasks, but proposed that the relationship is moderated by analytic think...
Analytical thinking is a vital part of intellectualism, although their relationship has not been directly examined. Therefore, in a representative Slovak sample (N = 410), we examined a newly developed Intellectualism-Anti-Intellectualism Scale (IAIS) by Marques et al. (2017) and its relationships to two indicators of analytical thinking - cognitiv...
The authors of the Integrated ScienceIntegrated science:MultidisciplinarityMultidisciplinarityandInterdisciplinarityInterdisciplinarityinHealthHealth were asked how you would see the future of your field 30 years later. This chapter presents the authors’ views on this subject in 2050. The Al-Samah danceDance. In the above poem, Hushang Ebtehaj says...
When it comes to healthHealth, people often hold beliefsBelief that are either unsupported or directly opposed by scientificScientific evidence, i.e., epistemically suspect beliefsEpistemically suspect beliefs (ESBs)(ESBEpistemically suspect beliefs (ESBs)). They prefer alternatives (e.g., homeopathy, healing by crystals, magnets, or herbsHerb) ove...
Rationale
Belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories can have severe consequences; it is therefore crucial to understand this phenomenon, in its similarities with general conspiracy belief, but also in how it is context-dependent.
Objective
The aim of this systematic review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the available research on COVID-19 c...
One of the appeals of conspiracy theories in times of crises is that they provide someone to blame for what has happened. Thereby, they increase distrust, negative feelings, and hostility toward implicated actors, whether those are powerful social outgroups or one’s own government representatives. Two studies reported here examine associations of C...
Background
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is popular among the general population and patients with various diseases, but our understanding of the predictors of CAM use for the population of women with or without cancer diagnosis is still quite limited. This paper examines predictors of attitudes toward and use of CAM, including cogni...
Coronavirus Disease 2019 broke out in China at the end of 2019 and spread rapidly around the world. In response, many countries have adopted social distancing and lockdown measures. But restrictive measures resulted in many unwanted psychological consequences, including mental fatigue. Mental fatigue in turn is very likely to cause psychopathologic...
While well-being is known to be mainly predicted by relatively stable personality traits and demographic factors, under circumstances of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the role of these predictors may be attenuated, and more situational factors may come into play. In the present study, we examined those relatively stable predictors of well-being al...
In this paper, we explored the scientific literacy of a general sample of the Slovak adult population and examined factors that might help or inhibit scientific reasoning, namely the content of the problems. In doing so, we also verified the assumption that when faced with real-life scientific problems, people do not necessarily apply decontextuali...
The endorsement of epistemically suspect (i.e., paranormal, conspiracy, and pseudoscientific) beliefs is widespread and has negative consequences. Therefore, it is important to understand the reasoning processes – such as lower analytic thinking and susceptibility to cognitive biases – that might lead to the adoption of such beliefs. In two studies...
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how congruence between the image of a successful entrepreneur and one’s own gender-role orientation affects entrepreneurial intentions (EI).
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 552 working-age adults (49.5% women) answered questions on gender-role orientation, perception of a successful entrepreneur, EI, a...
This paper focuses on the science understanding (scientific reasoning and trust in science) and analytic thinking and their role in: 1) having less conspiracy and pseudoscientific beliefs about COVID-19, and 2) behavioral intentions in line with scientific consensus (i.e. following evidence-based guidelines and vaccination intentions). We examined...
Delay discounting, the tendency to choose a smaller-sooner reward over a larger-later reward, has been conceptualized either as a personal preference or as a rational thinking component. In this study (N = 397), the associations between monetary delay discounting-constructed as a rational thinking task-and cognitive individual difference measures w...
Belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories can have severe consequences; it is therefore crucial to understand this phenomenon. We present a narrative synthesis of COVID-19 conspiracy belief research from 85 international articles, identified and appraised through a systematic review. We identify a number of significant antecedents of COVID-19 conspira...
One of the appeals of conspiracy theories in times of crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is that they provide a scapegoat – someone to blame for what has happened. By doing this, they increase distrust, negative feelings, and even hostility toward implicated actors, whether those are powerful social outgroups or one’s own government representat...
Societal crises and stressful events are associated with an upsurge of conspiracy beliefs that may help people to tackle feelings of lack of control. In our study (N = 783), we examined whether people with higher feelings of anxiety and lack of control early in the COVID‐19 pandemic endorse more conspiracy theories. Our results show that a higher p...
COVID-19 conspiracy theories emerged almost immediately after the beginning of the pandemic, and the number of believers does not appear to decline. Believing in these theories can negatively affect adherence to safety guidelines and vaccination intentions, potentially endangering the lives of many. Thus, one part in successfully fighting the pande...
We examined whether scientific reasoning is associated with health-related beliefs and behaviors over and above general analytic thinking ability in the general public (N = 783, aged 18–84). Health-related beliefs included: anti-vaccination attitudes, COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, and generic health-related epistemically suspect beliefs. Scientific...
As one of the barriers to their personal engagement in climate change issues, people report insufficient understanding of this problem. And yet, while better scientific knowledge and trust in science have been shown to be associated with people's concern over climate change issues, the relationship is not a straightforward one. An influential study...
Studies on individual differences in susceptibility to cognitive biases have identified several cognitive dispositions which were thought to predict reasoning by contributing to the efficiency of analytic thought. However, hybrid models suggest that differences between reasoners may arise already in the intuitive stages of the reasoning process. To...
We examined whether scientific reasoning predicts health-related beliefs and behaviors over and above the general analytic thinking ability in general public (N = 783, aged between 18 – 84 years). Health-related beliefs included: the anti-vaccination attitudes, conspiracy beliefs related to the COVID-19 disease, and some generic epistemically suspe...
Threatening events (hurricanes, disease outbreaks, famines) are associated with an upsurge of conspiracy beliefs that provide people with simple explanations to tackle the feelings of anxiety and lack of control. In our study (N = 783), conducted shortly after the first cases of COVID-19 were identified in our country, we examined whether people wi...
A key component of the susceptibility to cognitive biases is the ability to monitor for conflict between intuitively cued “heuristic” answers and logical principles. While there is evidence that people differ in their ability to detect such conflicts, it is not clear which factors are driving these differences. In the present study (N = 399) we exp...
The endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs (i.e. paranormal, conspiracy, and pseudoscientific beliefs) is both surprisingly widespread and has been shown to have important negative real-life consequences. For these reasons, it is important to understand individual differences in epistemically suspect beliefs and their associations with other...
Key mechanism in rational reasoning is the ability to detect a conflict between intuition and logical demands of the task. The monitoring mechanism is traditionally considered to be a component of analytical thinking, however, hybrid models suggest that the detection is possible even at the intuitive level. We used two-response paradigm in which
p...
Studies on individual differences in susceptibility to cognitive biases have identified several cognitive dispositions which were thought to predict reasoning by contributing to the efficiency of analytic thought. Recently formulated hybrid models, however, suggest that substantial differences between reasoners may arise early already in the intuit...
This paper examines whether scientific‐reasoning skills predict people's susceptibility to epistemically suspect beliefs and cognitive biases. We used the recently developed Scientific‐Reasoning Scale (SRS; Drummond & Fischhoff, 2017) because it measures the ability to read and evaluate scientific evidence. Alongside the SRS, 317 participants aged...
One of the key components of the susceptibility to cognitive biases is the ability to monitor for conflict that may arise between intuitively cued “heuristic” answers and logical principles. While there is evidence that people differ in their ability to detect such conflicts, it is not clear which individual factors are driving these differences. I...
Abstrakt Úvod: V práci skúmame vzťah temperamentových a charakterových čŕt Cloningerovho Psychobiologického modelu osobnosti a Temnej triády osobnostných čŕt v teoretickom modeli Paulhusa a Williamsa. Metódy: Dimenzie temperamentu a charakteru sme skúmali prostredníctvom slovenského prekladu Temperament & Character Inventory (TCI-R), úroveň temných...
Present study is focused on the key mechanism in the cognitive bias research-the ability to detect conflict between intuition and logic. Participants answered 8 syllogisms, provided confidence for their responses, and filled in the Need for Cognition (NFC) scale. Confidence data showed that people process conflict and no-conflict problems different...
Objectives. The aim of present study was to determine , whether executive inhibition and cog-nitive flexibility contribute to resisting belief bias in reasoning. It was also of interest to find out, whether all people inhibit their beliefs, or only cognitively less disposed participants depend on this process while solving syllogisms. Sample and se...
Psychológovia identifikovali rad systematických odchýlok, ktoré ovplyvňujú ľudské myslenie v celej jeho šírke. Spomedzi mnohých možno uviesť napr. sklon k sebapotvrdzovaniu, ktorý závažne ovplyvňuje schopnosť testovania hypotéz (Evans, 2016) a vyhľadávania a hodnotenia evidencie (Nickerson, 1998). Naše uvažovanie je taktiež skreslené v prospech dos...
Príspevok je venovaný porovnaniu kognitívnych štýlov u vysokoškolských študentov s rôznym odborným zameraním. Na zachytenie kognitívneho štýlu sme použili dotazník Preferencie k intuícii a deliberácii, a objektívnu mieru kognitívneho štýlu – Rozšírený Test kognitívnej reflexie. Výskumný súbor tvorilo 1648 študentov. Obe metódy poukázali na silnú pr...
Projects
Projects (3)
The aim of the project is to examine factors that influence the spread of unfounded information regarding controversial topics. In the recent years, there was a lot of attention paid by media, society, and scientists to the rise of unfounded claims about various socially important issues – such as climate skepticism, conspiracy theories regarding the purposeful spread of viruses, or fake news that give rise to the fear of migrants. In our project, we integrate the most recent findings from several domains of research on unfounded beliefs, scientific reasoning, and cognitive biases with the aim of identifying the causes and consequences of the proliferation of such information in the society. Our research on this topic will include a focus on (1) potential recipients of unfounded information, (2) context and characteristics of the environment in which the spread of misinformation takes place, and (3) people who actively endorse unfounded beliefs and contribute to their proliferation.
Project focuses on the question which individual predictors influence cognitive failures of people and how can we help them to make better decisions. Cognitive failures are examined from two perspectives – from the perspective of predictors entering into cognitive process and from the perspective of predictors of cognitive failures in specific areas. Relatively new and original is the area of epistemically suspect beliefs (ESB), which represent specific domain of cognitive failures understanding of which can have practical implications for everyday life – from explication of vulnerability in financial decisions to political extremism. The aim of the project is to construct methods for measuring rational thinking and ESB, identify individual predictors of cognitive failures and their mutual interaction. It will enable us to examine how resistance to cognitive failures in rational tasks correlates with various ESB and to identify socio-cultural factors that predict forming of ESB in Slovakia. We will also experimentally verify effect of interventions modified according to these individual predictors on cognitive failures. Previous intervention efforts failed because of the universality of used procedures without regard to specific characteristics of groups of people, who are – for whatever reasons – immune to these interventions and without regard to specific domains of cognitive failures, therefore we aim to specifically address these concerns in our project. Thus, our results can contribute to verification of the latest models of cognitive processes within dual process theories and promote our understanding of connection between cognitive failures in rational thinking tasks and ESB as one of the manifestation of cognitive failure in everyday life.
The aim of the project is to identify and describe factors contributing to people’s better acceptance, comprehension and processing of expert information that are necessary for informed and evidence based decision making.
Lack of comprehension and acceptance of expert information are caused by (1) cognitive limitations of the information recipient (e.g., confirmation bias), (2) the way information is phrased and presented (e.g., using percent instead of natural frequencies). By studying these limitations we should be able to design and test the possibilities of efficient communication of information for debiasing and optimization of decisions.
