A short educational intervention diminishes causal illusions and specific paranormal beliefs in undergraduates

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dc.contributor.authorBarberia Fernández, Itxaso
dc.contributor.authorTubau, Elisabeth
dc.contributor.authorMatute, Helena
dc.contributor.authorRodríguez Ferreiro, Javier
dc.date.accessioned2025-10-24T11:17:20Z
dc.date.available2025-10-24T11:17:20Z
dc.date.issued2018-01-31
dc.date.updated2025-10-24T11:17:20Z
dc.description.abstractCognitive biases such as causal illusions have been related to paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs and, thus, pose a real threat to the development of adequate critical thinking abilities. We aimed to reduce causal illusions in undergraduates by means of an educational intervention combining training-in-bias and training-in-rules techniques. First, participants directly experienced situations that tend to induce the Barnum effect and the confirmation bias. Thereafter, these effects were explained and examples of their influence over everyday life were provided. Compared to a control group, participants who received the intervention showed diminished causal illusions in a contingency learning task and a decrease in the precognition dimension of a paranormal belief scale. Overall, results suggest that evidence-based educational interventions like the one presented here could be used to significantly improve critical thinking skills in our students.en
dc.description.sponsorshipThis study was supported by the grant PSI2016-75776-R (AEI/FEDER, UE) from Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish government and the European Regional Development Fund to IB. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The study was performed in the context of the teaching project 2015PID-UB/030 (Programa de Millora i Innovacio´ Docent, PMID, Universitat de Barcelona)es
dc.identifier.citationBarberia, I., Tubau, E., Matute, H., & Rodríguez-Ferreiro, J. (2018). A short educational intervention diminishes causal illusions and specific paranormal beliefs in undergraduates. PLoS ONE, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0191907
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0191907
dc.identifier.eissn1932-6203
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14454/4087
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherPublic Library of Science
dc.rights© 2018 Barberia et al.
dc.titleA short educational intervention diminishes causal illusions and specific paranormal beliefs in undergraduatesen
dc.typejournal article
dcterms.accessRightsopen access
oaire.citation.issue1
oaire.citation.titlePLoS ONE
oaire.citation.volume13
oaire.licenseConditionhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
oaire.versionVoR
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