Numerical Reasoning Ability and Irrational Beliefs in Problem Gambling

Reasoning ability predicts irrational worldview but not conspiracy belief

Previous research showed that individual tendency to believe in conspiracy theories is related to numerous social, personality, and cognitive variables. Moreover, such a tendency may reflect a broader trait for epistemic irrationality, which drives other pseudoscientific and paranormal beliefs. However, the relationship between conspiracy belief and reasoning ability (fluid intelligence; Gf) wa...

Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs

Delusional people are people saying very bizarre things like they are dead, their spouse is a robot, the TV star is talking to them, they are possessed by the devil, aliens are following them, and so on. Even though we know that they are not identical, terms like “delusion” and “mental illness” are often used as synonyms in ordinary language. This comes from what psychopathology tradition hande...

Beliefs about control over gambling among young people , and their relation to problem gambling 1

Worth the Risk? Modeling Irrational Gambling Behavior

In math class, expected value is often used when deciding whether or not a game is worth playing. A common refrain is that games with negative expected value should be avoided. However, nearly all games of chance have a negative expected value, and a simple expected value analysis fails to explain why these games are so popular. In this article, we consider three psychological factors leading t...

Irrational Beliefs and the Anxiety Disorders

This study investigated the levels of irrationality reported by a clinical sample of anxiety disorder patients, including simple and social phobics, panic disorder patients, agoraphobics, and obssessive compulsive patients. The levels of irrationality were compared between these groups and a group of normal control subjects, using the Rational Behavior Inventory (RBI). Agoraphobic patients were...