Cultural misbeliefs are false beliefs that are widely spread through social transmission, such as rumors or conspiracy theories. These misbeliefs are often feared to cause much damage, as people engage in costly actions on their basis. However, it is possible for people to hold a belief in such a way that the belief only has limited impact on their thoughts or behavior – if they hold a belief reflectively, by contrast with intuitively. Here, we argue that (i) most cultural misbeliefs are held reflectively and that (ii) they rarely directly cause costly behavior. We note that different cultures use different misbeliefs to justify similar behaviors, suggesting that the beliefs are secondary to the behavior. Moreover, misbeliefs usually do not have the consequences they would have if they were held intuitively, causing other types of (usually less costly) behaviors instead.

Human beings form beliefs about the way the world works according to the information that is available to them, their processing ability, and their existing knowledge. However, in such an information-rich world, they sometimes trust their intuitive beliefs rather than their reflective ones. Intuitive beliefs tend to have a bad press in our modern world, as they are often regarded as suboptimal and even erroneous. In the present chapter, we aim to restore their reputation. First, we provide an overview of the two types of beliefs, in the light of dual-process theories whereby people can engage in either fast, almost automatic thinking processes, or slower, more deliberative ones. We then identify contexts in which intuitive beliefs provide compelling cues for daily human activities and sometimes outperform reflective beliefs. Finally, we discuss how intuitive beliefs can even be beneficial for reasoning and learning.