Summary information

Study title

Understanding People and Understanding Things 2013 and 2015

Creator

Lindeman, Marjaana (University of Helsinki. Department of Psychology and Logopedics) - 0000-0003-4176-3736

Svedholm-Häkkinen, Annika (University of Helsinki. Department of Psychology and Logopedics) - 0000-0002-6462-6630

Riekki, Tapani (University of Helsinki. Department of Psychology and Logopedics) - 0000-0001-5097-3415

Study number / PID

FSD3260 (FSD)

urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3260 (URN)

10.60686/t-fsd3260 (DOI)

Data access

Restricted

Series

Individual datasets

Individual datasets that do not belong to any series.

Abstract

The psychological follow-up study charted beliefs, thinking and reasoning. It surveyed, among others, the respondents' capacity for compassion, social skills, vaccine attitudes, and faulty reasoning (e.g. assigning spiritual traits to things that are not generally seen as having such traits). The dataset also contains the participants' responses to a previous study (FSD3259 Understanding People and Understanding Things 2013) to enable combining the responses to both studies. Some of the batteries of questions included standardised measures and some were developed by the researchers. The data were collected as part of a project funded by the Academy of Finland examining reasoning skills, intuitive skills in psychology and physics and the relationship of these skills with supernatural beliefs. Below is a description of the content and themes of the data collected in 2015. See the data description of FSD3259 for detailed information on the data collected in 2013. The respondents' empathy was charted using the Basic Empathy Scale in Adults and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Insight was measured with the help of Beck Cognitive Insight Scale. A modified Epistemic Understanding Questionnaire was used to examine views of knowing and knowledge. The respondents were asked how often they acted tactlessly (e.g. were late for appointments, used their phone a lot in company, jumped queues) and whether acting that way would make them feel they were doing wrong. They were also asked whether they would describe certain words as being "spiritual" or "non-spiritual". Several statements were presented to gauge opinions on vaccination and its effects. A few test statements were presented to see whether the respondents read the instructions carefully. Finally, the respondents were asked whether they suspected they had Asperger's syndrome or autism and whether they had been diagnosed with either. Background variables included, among others, age, gender, religious denomination,...

HumanitiesSocial sciencesPsychologySocial behaviour and attitudes

BeliefsCognitive processesEmotional statesKnowledge (awareness)MagicPerceptionPersonalityPersonality traitsProblem solvingReasoningSocial behaviourSocial interaction

Data collection period

10/2013 - 11/2015

Country

Finland

Time dimension

Cross-section ad-hoc follow-up

Analysis unit

Individual

Universe

Respondents who had participated in the earlier survey conducted in the research project

Sampling procedure

Total universe/Complete enumeration

Kind of data

Quantitative

Data collection mode

Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)

Funder

Academy of Finland

Grant number

266573

Publisher

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Publication year

2019

Terms of data access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. M., & Lindeman, M. (2018). Actively Open-Minded Thinking: Development of a shortened scale and disentangling attitudes towards knowledge and people. Thinking & Reasoning, 24, 2140.
Lindeman, M. & Lipsanen, J. (2017). Mentalizing: Seeking the underlying dimensions. International Journal of Psychological Studies, 9, 10-23.
Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. M., Ojala, S. J., & Lindeman, M. (2018). Male brain type women and female brain type men: Gender atypical cognitive profiles and their correlates. Personality and Individual Differences, 122, 7-12.
Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. M., Halme, S., & Lindeman, M. (2018). Empathizing and systemizing are differentially related to dimensions of autistic traits in the general population. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 18, 35-42.
Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. M. & Lindeman, M. (2017): Intuitive and Deliberative Empathizers and Systemizers. Journal of Personality, 85, 593-602.
Lindeman, M., Koirikivi, I. & Lipsanen, J. (2016). Pictorial Empathy Test (PET). An easy-to-use method for assessing affective empathic reactions. European Journal of Psychological Assessment. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000353
Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. M. & Lindeman, M. (2016). Testing the Empathizing-Systemizing theory in the general population: Occupations, vocational interests, grades, hobbies, friendship quality, social intelligence, and sex role identity. Personality and Individual Differences, 90, 365-370.
Lindeman, M. & Lipsanen, J. (2016). Diverse cognitive profiles of religious believers and nonbelievers. International Journal for The Psychology of Religion, 26, 185-192.
Lindeman, M., Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. M., Lipsanen, J. (2015). Ontological confusions but not mentalizing abilities predict religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in supernatural purpose. Cognition, 134, 63-76.
Lindeman, M., Koirikivi, I., & Lipsanen, J. (2018). Pictorial Empathy Test. An easy-to use method of affective empathic abilities. European Journal of Psychological Assessment., 34, 421-431. doi:10.1027/1015-5759/a000353
Lindeman, M. & Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. M. (2016). Does poor understanding of physical world predict religious and paranormal beliefs? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 30, 736-742.
Lindeman, M., Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. & Riekki, T. (2022) Searching for the Cognitive Basis of Anti-Vaccination Attitudes. Lehti: Thinking & Reasoning.