Pseudoscientific Health Beliefs and the Perceived Frequency of Causal Relationships

Julie Y. L. Chow, Ben Colagiuri, Benjamin M. Rottman, Micah Goldwater and Evan J. Livesey
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Julie Y. L. Chow: School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Ben Colagiuri: School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Benjamin M. Rottman: Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
Micah Goldwater: School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Evan J. Livesey: School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-16

Abstract: Beliefs about cause and effect, including health beliefs, are thought to be related to the frequency of the target outcome (e.g., health recovery) occurring when the putative cause is present and when it is absent (treatment administered vs. no treatment); this is known as contingency learning . However, it is unclear whether unvalidated health beliefs, where there is no evidence of cause–effect contingency, are also influenced by the subjective perception of a meaningful contingency between events. In a survey, respondents were asked to judge a range of health beliefs and estimate the probability of the target outcome occurring with and without the putative cause present. Overall, we found evidence that causal beliefs are related to perceived cause–effect contingency. Interestingly, beliefs that were not predicted by perceived contingency were meaningfully related to scores on the paranormal belief scale. These findings suggest heterogeneity in pseudoscientific health beliefs and the need to tailor intervention strategies according to underlying causes.

Keywords: pseudoscientific beliefs; contingency learning; causal belief (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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