Alternative Medicine, COVID-19 Conspiracies, and Other Health-Related Unfounded Beliefs: The Role of Scientific Literacy, Analytical Thinking, and Importance of Epistemic Rationality

We examined how scientific literacy (scientific reasoning, scientific knowledge, and trust in science), an-alytical thinking and the importance of epistemic rationality relate to the belief in the efficacy of comple-mentary and alternative medicine (CAM) and other health-related unfounded beliefs (COVID-19 conspir-acies, pseudoscientific and magical beliefs, and cancer myths). A representative sample of 1038 Slovaks (Mage = 42.08, SD = 13.99) participated in the study. While CAM belief correlated with COVID-19 conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific beliefs, magical health-related beliefs, and cancer myths, it appeared that belief in CAM was primarily driven by lower trust in science, lower analytical thinking, and, interestingly, a higher need to be epistemically rational. Other components of scientific literacy did not significantly predict CAM belief but they did predict other health-related unfounded beliefs, which may suggest that a more fine-tuned approach to studying CAM beliefs is needed.