Development and Validation of the Evidence Intuition Scale

In a time characterized by an increasing prevalence of misinformation and the emergence of `alternative facts' that challenge conventional notions of truth, it is crucial to understand the roots and impacts of these phenomena. While these issues emerge at a societal level, driven by factors such as populism and polarization, their underpinnings also reside at the individual level. To address this, we aim to uncover how individual beliefs and cognitive styles contribute to the increasing contestation of truth. We developed the Evidence Intuition Scale (EIS) that measures two components of how people subjectively construct truth: evidence-based and intuition-based. The evidence-based component prioritizes empirical evidence and rational justification, valuing facts over personal feelings and demanding well-informed opinions supported by data. In contrast, the intuition-based component leans towards an instinctual and subjective reality perception, emphasizing gut feelings. Utilizing a cross-cultural sample from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom (total N=5121), we examine the EIS's factor structure, reliability, and both its discriminant validity. Structural Equation Modeling confirms the scale's two-factor structure. Furthermore, the EIS demonstrates meaningful associations with various measures, including political attitudes (e.g., populist attitudes, political ideology), cognitive styles (e.g., open-minded thinking), and political behaviors, encompassing both normative (e.g., joining rallies, signing petitions) and non-normative actions (e.g., attacking government officials). The EIS therefore offers a parsimonious instrument to assess an individual's construction and understanding of truth.