Explanations of science denial rooted in individual cognition tend to focus on general trait-like factors such as cognitive style, conspiracist ideation or delusional ideation. However, we argue that this focus typically glosses over the concrete, mechanistic elements of belief formation, such as hypothesis generation, data gathering, or hypothesis evaluation. We show, empirically, that such elements predict variance in science denial not accounted for by cognitive style, even after accounting for social factors such as political ideology. We conclude that a cognitive account of science denial would benefit from the study of complex (i.e., open-ended, multi-stage) problem solving that incorporates these mechanistic elements.

From distracted driving, to work focus on a computer,increasing amounts of research is investigating how digitaltechnology influences users’ attention. A couple of widelycited studies have found that the mere presence of cell phonesinterferes with social interactions and cognitive performance,even when not actively in use. These studies have importantimplications but they have not yet been replicated, and alsosuffer from methodological shortcomings and lack ofestablished theoretical frameworks to explain the observedeffects. We improved the methodology used in a previousstudy of phone presence and task performance (Thornton,Faires, Robbins, & Rollins, 2014), while testing an‘opportunity cost’ model of mental effort and attention(Kurzban, Duckworth, Kable, & Myers, 2013). We wereunable to replicate Thornton et al.’s finding that presence ofcell phones reduces performance in a specific cognitive task(additive digit cancellation). Moreover, contrary to ourexpectations, we found that participants who used theirphones more, and who were more attached to them, found thetasks more fun/exciting and effortless, if they completed themwith their phone present.

Do forgiving God primes strengthen support for state-sanctioned punishment?Laurin et al (2012) found that beliefs in powerful, intervening Gods (both in general and when made salient) reduce people’sendorsement of state-sanctioned punishment. In light of this, we investigated whether the manner in which God intervenes (viaforgiveness or punishment) influences people’s endorsement of state-sanctioned punishment.Across four studies we explored a) whether priming participants with a forgiving God and b) whether salient, forgiving Godbeliefs increase endorsements of state-sanctioned punishment. The rationale being that a forgiving God will lead people toview punishment as a responsibility that lies with them rather than one outsourced to God. Our results revealed no evidence foreffects of forgiving God primes or salient forgiving god beliefs on endorsements of state-sanctioned punishment. We discussthe implications of these findings for extant theories of religious prosociality and proportionality-based accounts of morality.

Science denial is a pressing social problem, contributing toinactivity in the face of climate change, or to a resurgencein outbreaks of preventable diseases. Cognitive factors are asignificant driver of science denial, in addition to social fac-tors such as political ideology. Biases pertaining to judgmentsof contingency (i.e., inferring causal relationships where noneexist) have been associated with misbeliefs, such as belief inthe paranormal and conspiracy theories. Here, we examinewhether contingency biases likewise predict science denial.We show that (a) various tasks used to study relevant biases doin fact load on a single latent ‘contingency illusion’ factor; (b)this contingency illusion bias is associated with increased sci-ence denial; (c) the contingency illusion bias mediates the re-lationship between intuitive (vs. analytic) cognitive style andscience denial; and (d) this holds even when accounting forpolitical ideology.