How scientific reasoning correlates with health-related beliefs and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Abstract

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 reasoning correlated with generic pseudoscientific and health-related conspiracy beliefs and COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. Crucially, scientific reasoning was a stronger independent predictor of unfounded beliefs (including anti-vaccination attitudes) than general analytic thinking was; however, it had a more modest role in health-related behaviors.