Analytic-thinking predicts hoax beliefs and helping behaviors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract The COVID-19 outbreak was labeled a global pandemic by the WHO in March of 2020. During that same month, the number of confirmed cases and the death rate grew exponentially in the United States, creating a serious public-health emergency. Unfortunately, many Americans dismissed the pandemic as a hoax and failed to properly engage in helpful behaviors like social-distancing and increased hand-washing. Here, we examine a disposition—engagement in analytic-thinking—that might predict beliefs that the pandemic is a hoax and failures to change behavior in positive ways during that critical early period in March. Our results indicate that individuals less likely to engage effortful, deliberative, and reflective cognitive processes were more likely to believe the pandemic was a hoax and less likely to have recently engaged in social-distancing and hand-washing in March. We discuss possible implications of these results for understanding and addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.