Intelligence and belief Research findings have revealed that high-intelligence individuals are, like the rest of us, not immune from forming, maintaining, or advocating suspect, incorrect, or bogus beliefs.   Evaluating arguments independently of prior belief is a key element of critical thinking. There are clear indications in study results that individual differences in this skill can be predicted by thinking dispositions over and above variations in general cognitive ability. Such dispositions to believe predict the tendency to draw one-sided conclusions from ambiguous evidence. Likewise, subjects’ greater criticism of belief-inconsistent evidence in contrast with belief-consistent evidence has been found to be unrelated to cognitive ability.   Individual differences in this cognitive processing have been related to the following measures of actor tendencies: dogmatism and absolutism, categorical thinking, openness, flexible thinking, belief identification, counterfactual thinking, superstitious thinking, and active open-minded thinking. Such thinking dispositions express individual differences in people’s goals and epistemic◊ values.   For example, individuals scoring highly on measures of active open-mindedness and low on measures of dogmatism and absolutism* value belief change in order to get closer to the truth of claims: meaning such individuals value an accurate belief-forming system more than they do their own current beliefs. Contrast this with people having low scores on active open-mindedness and high scores on dogmatism and absolutism† – this pattern of responses indicates that retaining current beliefs is an important goal: they are signalling that they are placing a high premium on beliefs they currently hold and little worth on mechanisms or methods which involve changing or modifying those beliefs, even when more accurate beliefs might result.   While people’s performance on cognitive tasks requiring reasoning about previously-held beliefs will be affected to some degree by the reasoner’s level of intelligence‡, it also depends upon their goals and thinking dispositions. Thus, understanding people’s evaluation of evidence needs consideration of this variation in approach and what affect actors’ prior beliefs have beyond and in addition to differences in their raw intellectual abilities.   Any person is likely to hold a large number of beliefs, including very many true beliefs, which are interconnected in complex ways. It has been suggested that revising a belief has intellectually-costly effects upon the rest of the network of beliefs, and therefore may account for people’s common reaction to conclusions which contradict their beliefs, namely, subjecting the offending claim to the closest scrutiny with a preference for rejecting it.   On the occasions when highly intelligent individuals adopt a “bad belief”, rather than assisting them their intellectual capacity then becomes somewhat of a disadvantage for, they now turn their considerable talents towards a forceful and very persuasive defence of the faulty belief. This can have the effect of not only convincing others, but also reinforcing their own commitment to the belief.   (see also: belief and bias, belief bias, belief perseverance, decision-making under uncertainty, Confirmation bias, myside bias, rationalization, expert opinion)   ◊“epistemic”: of or relating to knowledge.