Publisher's Synopsis
In this report, the authors address one of Truth Decay's proposed drivers: characteristics of human cognitive processing, such as cognitive biases. The authors describe development of a survey measure that they used to examine characteristics of human cognitive processing (such as cognitive biases) and assess the results for individuals' resistance or susceptibility to Truth Decay. The authors focused on six Truth Decay measures: endorsement of scientific consensus, endorsement of verifiable facts, rejection of false conspiracy theories, distinguishing fact from opinion, willingness to accept expert recommendations, and philosophical positivism versus skepticism. The survey used six measures of cognitive biases and reasoning: numeracy, scientific reasoning, magical reasoning, availability bias, unjustified confidence, and ingroup bias. Generally speaking, greater resistance to Truth Decay on each of the six scales was predicted by great
