Welcome to the homepage of Research on Everyday Thinking. Our main focus is on superstitious, magical, paranormal, and supernatural beliefs in their many forms. We focus especially on the following questions:
- Conceptual analysis of superstition, magical, paranormal, and supernatural beliefs. What are these beliefs, what if anything distinguishes them from each other, and how do they differ from other beliefs?
- Dual process theories of reasoning and the role of intuition and analytical thinking on the beliefs
- Core knowledge confusions about physical, biological, and psychological phenomena
- Relationships between intuitive and scientific construals of basic physical, biological, and psychological phenomena. The effects of radical conceptual change on core knowledge confusions, paranormal thinking, and other ontologically incorrect lay beliefs.
- What is the relationship between religious and other paranormal beliefs?
- What motivates people to use alternative medicine?
- How do motivation, self-regulation and attitudes interact?
- What is the cognitive-emotional basis of personality?
- How do states and traits interact in predicting cognitive processing and behavior?
We also conduct research on values, social judgment, and self-regulation:
Last update 20 January 2010