Studies on epistemically suspect beliefs (ESB) have suggested that individual’s analytic cognition suppresses un-warranted beliefs, however, our previous studies also showed that an inhibitory effect of analytic cognition was higher amongWesterners than Easterners. Rather, intuitive cognition was a common predictor of beliefs between two cultures. Among sev-eral cultural differences in cognitive style, we suspect that tendency towards dialectic thinking, i.e., tolerance for contradictionmay contribute cultural differences on ESB. The present study aimed to explore this possibility and investigated the associationbetween beliefs and other cognitive measures including individual’s cognitive abilities, thinking dispositions, personality traitsand propensity towards dialectic thinking. The results showed that the ESB resulted from our intuitive cognition for the mostpart, and that the effect of culture diminished whilst controlling individual’s tendency towards dialectic thinking and style ofcausal cognition. The cultural difference in a relationship between beliefs and cognitive style was discussed.

It has been shown that believers of empirically suspect beliefs (ESBs) were less analytic than the skeptics, hence they weremore likely to show the belief bias in syllogistic reasoning in which the conclusion was related to the general knowledge.However, little is known whether they show the similar biases in the syllogism that the conclusion was related to theirESBs. The present study investigated whether ESB believers tended to commit the bias than non-believers, and whetherthe link between belief and reasoning errors was moderated by cognitive style towards analytical thinking. The resultsshowed that the paranormal belief was negatively associated with the correct ratio of syllogistic reasoning, whereas thisassociation was no more significant after the cognitive style and response time were controlled. On the other hand, thelink between the pseudoscientific belief and the reasoning performance remained significant after the cognitive style waspartialled out.

Research within the dual-process framework have repeatedly suggested that individuals thinking style can predict theirperformance on reasoning, judgment, decision making, and acceptance of religious and paranormal statements. However,some studies also suggested that the link between analytical thinking and epistemically unwarranted beliefs was peculiar toso-called WEIRD societies. The present study aimed to explore the possible cultural (Western and Eastern) difference onthe relationship between performance and style of our thinking. Participants were presented with various tasks includingbelief bias, denominator neglect bias, numeracy, temporal discounting, risk preference, and paranormal belief. They werealso presented with tasks measuring their thinking styles (CRT and Rational-Experiential Inventory). Results showedthat the effects of thinking style on heuristics-bias and decision-making tasks were almost similar between two cultures,however we find a significant style-culture interaction in paranormal beliefs. This may suggest a cultural difference of therole of analytical thinking on belief-based response.

In the literature, scholars often postulate a uni-dimensional structure of beliefs in conspiracy theory except for the GenericConspiracist Belief scale (GCB, Brotherton et al., 2013) which posits a five-factor structure of the belief. On the otherhand, a recent study extending the GCB to non-Western population proposed a two-factor structure which dissociatesextraterrestrial conspiracy from other beliefs and suggested that the belief structure might not be equivalent across Westernand non-Western population. In this study, 616 participants from two cloud-sourcing pools (309 Westerners / 307 Japanese) answered to questionnaires including GCB. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the validity of two-factor structure across two pools, however only partial metric invariance has been achieved. Results suggests that overallstructure of conspiracy belief is similar across cultures, however several aspects of beliefs might not be equivalent.

Present study examines the effect of incidental haptic sensations on acceptance of utilitarian judgment—seeking greater happiness in exchange for a few victims—under personal and impersonal moral dilemmas. Recently, Nakamura et al. (2014) indicated that physical coldness reduced empathic concern and facilitated utilitarian judgment in personal moral dilemma. It is also shown that tactile sensations such as softness and hardness affect our social judgment and empathic feeling to others. In this experiment, participants palmed either a soft cotton cushion or a hard iron tube while making moral judgments. Results showed that the hardness did not solely facilitate utilitarian judgment, however sex-tactile sensations interaction was modestly significant in personal dilemma. Specifically, males seemed to be more utilitarian while palming the iron tube. Results also showed that males were more utilitarian when they felt the sacrificed individuals were socially distant. Furthermore, contrary to expectation, high empathic feelings strengthened utilitarian judgment.