A general cognitive-motivational liability underlies diverse epistemically unfounded beliefs—conspiracy, paranormal, pseudoscientific, religious, and pseudo-profound (“bullshit”) beliefs—alongside domain-specific components. In a nationally representative Russian sample (N = 1268), a bifactor model best captured the covariance structure, with a general factor explaining about half of the common variance. Domain scores alone confound this general liability with specific variance, distorting cross-domain comparisons. Cognitive and motivational antecedents correlated more strongly with the general factor, while each belief domain showed distinct additional profiles. The findings support a dimensional view rooted in a common cognitive-motivational architecture, potentially reflecting an evolved predisposition favoring Type I errors and archaic magical thinking.
The effects of nitrous oxide at different subanaesthetic concentrations were examined in twelve subjects. Subjective intoxication and eight mood variables were measured using magnitude estimation, and objective performance was tested with memory and arithmetic tasks. For most variables, dose-response curves showed progressively larger effects as dose increased. At concentrations below 20 percent, changes were very slight. The results are compared with similar data from an alcohol experiment.
Subjective intoxication from nitrous oxide increases regularly and pronouncedly with higher doses, as measured by magnitude estimation. Both the intoxicated subjects' own estimates and observers' ratings showed this pattern. Objective performance changes followed the same general trend but were much less pronounced. The authors concluded that subjective scaling methods are well suited for measuring drug-induced changes in subjective variables.