Title: Worldview Misattribution Wave 4 Collaborators: Ruben Laukkonen, Benjamin Kaveladze, Jason Tangen, Jonathan Schooler. For more information, please contact Ruben Laukkonen: ruben.laukkonen@gmail.com. Background & Rationale: In a previous study, we showed that the feeling of "truthiness" resulting from an Aha! experience can be misattributed to the validity of an unrelated claim, see https://osf.io/up98z/. This study will investigate whether this effect will extend to the perceived truthiness of worldview claims, for example "life has purpose". Specifically, we will evaluate if the phenomenology accompanying Aha! experiences will influence the perceived "truthiness" of statements relating to individuals' worldviews. If beliefs as closely-held and important as worldviews (Koltko-Rivera, 2004) can be influenced by Aha! phenomenology, it could suggest that Aha! phenomenology may be a powerful tool for worldview endorsement and change. We ran an earlier version of this study with N=193 and a pilot test of the current version with N=361 with participants recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk (https://osf.io/s9d8y/), and ran a pilot test of the current version with participants recruited from CriticalMix with N=600 (https://osf.io/uy9dh/). Design & Materials: This experiment is a mixed factorial design with two within participant variables: 2 (problem: solved or unsolved) x 2 (Aha! experience: yes or no), and one between subjects factor (Anagram: anagram present, anagram absent). The dependent measure of interest is truth judgments on a 12 point scale ranging from 1 (definitely false), to 12 (definitely true). Aha! Moments will be evaluated by asking participants "Did you experience an Aha! moment while unscrambling the word?". All participants are presented with the same 15 worldview propositions, and those in the anagram condition are also presented with 15 anagrams derived from the propositions (see materials attachment). Each anagram was developed to be solved by roughly half of participants. Participants: 1500 Participants will be recruited using CriticalMix. Procedure: All participants are randomly assigned to either the Anagram or No Anagram condition. In the Anagram Condition, there are four phases to a trial: (1) presentation of an incomplete proposition, (2) resolving an anagram that completes the proposition within 15 seconds or presentation of the solution after 15 seconds if no response is submitted, (3) truth judgment about the completed proposition, (4) self reported Aha! experience. In the No Anagram condition, participants are presented with the completed proposition and a truth judgment about the proposition on the same page. Finally, all participants answer a few demographics questions. Here is one illustrative example from the Anagram Condition. Participants are first presented with the incomplete proposition with the last word missing, for example: "Reality is only a matter of _________.". Below the incomplete proposition participants are presented with an anagram that completes the proposition, in this case they are presented with "tvesrecipep" (Perspective). When the anagram is resolved participants see the complete proposition as: "Reality is only a matter of perspective." If the anagram is not solved within 15 seconds then the solution, "perspective", is presented. Participants then make a truth judgment about the completed proposition. Next, on a new screen, participants report whether they experienced an Aha! moment (yes or no). For each claim in the No Anagram condition participants are simply presented with the completed proposition "Reality is only a matter of perspective" and make a truth judgment about it on the same page. At the end of each condition all participants report their demographic information and complete three manipulation checks. Participants are asked if they found the answers to any of the questions online or elsewhere, if they experienced any Aha! moments, and if English is the language they are most comfortable using. Data Collection Done to Date: This study was already run with 363 participants on MTurk. Decision Rules: An anagram is classified as solved if a correct solution is entered within the 15 second time limit. A correct solution is coded if the unscrambled word completes the proposition (see materials), and minor misspellings will be accepted. Any participant who fails to complete the full experiment will be removed. Planned Analyses: Main analysis for decline effect: We will run a between-subjects t-test comparing average truth judgments across the "anagram" and "no-anagram" conditions. Other analyses: For participants in the "anagram" condition, we will run an ANOVA with truth judgements as the DV and Aha! Moments and solving as the IV's. For those in the "anagram" condition we will also run a repeated ANOVA with truth judgements as the DV and Aha! Moments and solving as the IV's, including only subjects who solved at least one anagram but did not solve every anagram, and reported at least one aha moment but not aha moments on every trial. Pearson's correlations between Aha! experiences and truth judgments will be calculated for the anagram condition. Any exploratory analyses will be updated at the bottom of this entry. Hypotheses: (1) Participants will rate propositions as more likely to be true if an Aha! moment was experienced. (2) Participants will rate propositions as more likely to be true if an anagram was solved rather than not solved. **(3 – Main Hypothesis) Participants in the anagram condition will rate propositions as more likely to be true on average than participants in the no anagram condition.** Aha! Instructions Transcript: After you decide whether the claim is true, you will be asked whether or not you experienced an "Aha!" moment at any point in the trial. Almost everyone has experienced an Aha! moment in the past. Many people report Aha! moments while having a shower, or just before falling asleep. Try to recall an Aha! experience that you've had, and try to remember how it felt. When completing the task, try to pay attention to when Aha! moments occur while unscrambling the word. When an Aha! moment occurs, it is as if the solution to the problem suddenly pops into your mind, like a lightbulb turning on. You might experience surprise, you might feel relief, and you might feel a light sense of happiness and ease. You can think of this experience as a miniature ‘Eureka moment’. You might even feel an internal sense of “Aha!,” or you might think to yourself, “of course!,” “that was so obvious”. Not experiencing an Aha! moment might feel like nothing much at all. You might simply think about the problem, and then gradually work out the solution.