Critical thinking is of paramount importance in our society. People regularly assume that critical thinking is a way to reduce conspiracy belief, although the relationship between critical thinking and conspiracy belief has never been tested. We conducted two studies (Study 1, N = 86; Study 2, N = 252), in which we found that critical thinking ability—measured by an open‐ended test emphasizing several areas of critical thinking ability in the context of argumentation—is negatively associated with belief in conspiracy theories. Additionally, we did not find a significant relationship between self‐reported (subjective) critical thinking ability and conspiracy belief. Our results support the idea that conspiracy believers have less developed critical thinking ability and stimulate discussion about the possibility of reducing conspiracy beliefs via the development of critical thinking.

中文翻译：

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也许是一个自由的思想家，但不是一个批判性的思想家：高共谋信念与较低的批判性思维能力有关

批判性思维在我们的社会中至关重要。人们一直认为批判性思维是减少共谋信念的一种方法，尽管批判性思维与共谋信念之间的关系从未得到检验。我们进行了两项研究（研究1，N = 86；研究2，N= 252），其中我们发现批判性思维能力（通过在辩论中强调批判性思维能力的几个领域的开放式测试来衡量）与对阴谋理论的信念负相关。此外，我们没有发现自我报告的（主观的）批判性思维能力与阴谋信念之间存在显着的关系。我们的结果支持以下观点：阴谋信徒的批判性思维能力较弱，并引发了关于通过发展批判性思维来减少阴谋信念的可能性的讨论。