The New Reflectionism in Cognitive Psychology

Why Reason Matters

Gordon Pennycook, Gordon Pennycook

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315460154
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This volume presents detailed reviews and will be of use to anyone interested in the strengths and weaknesses of human reason. This volume will also be of use to both proponents and skeptics of dual-process theory as it represents a strong case for the wide theoretical significance of the distinction between intuition and reflection. The empirical evidence indicates that analytic thinking plays a significant role in everyday life. Reason does, in fact, matter.

1

Why reason matters

An introduction

Gordon Pennycook

A long-standing and important tension commonly encountered in psychology is illustrated using the following two quotations:

Thought constitutes the greatness of man.

Blaise Pascal, Thoughts

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Attributed to William James (Greene & Haidt, 2002, p. 517)

Are humans defined by our analytic, logical, and reflective thought processes, as implied by Pascal, or are we prisoners to our intuitions and biases, as implied by James? What role does analytic thinking really play in determining our beliefs and behaviors? This edited volume brings together a diverse body of work that strongly supports the following conclusion: Reason matters.

In this introductory chapter, I will provide a brief (and non-comprehensive) historical overview of the clash between what I refer to as “intuitionist” and “reflectionist” perspectives in cognitive and social psychology. I will then use this context to introduce the chapters that follow.

Historical context

The human capacity to reason has long been held up as one of our most important and cherished evolutionary milestones. Indeed, from Socrates to Descartes to Russell, reasoning could verily be considered one of the primary obsessions of philosophy. It is hardly a surprise, then, that some of the earliest work in cognitive psychology emphasized the importance of reason (Haidt, 2012). For example, Piaget (1932) and, later, Kohlberg (1969) argued that abstract and logical reasoning represents the pinnacle of cognitive development.

In the 1970s, Kahneman and Tversky began publishing findings that would later comprise the “heuristics and biases” program of research (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982). This work, which ultimately won Kahneman a Nobel Prize (Kahneman, 2002) and that was the focus of his bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman, 2011), illustrated the many pitfalls of human reasoning. Namely, in lieu of reasoning in a cold and rational way, people tend to rely on simple rules (heuristics) and prior beliefs when making judgments. Consider, for example, the now famous lawyer-engineer problem:

A panel of psychologists have interviewed and administered personality tests to 30 engineers and 70 lawyers, all successful in their respective fields. On the basis of this information, thumbnail descriptions of the 30 engineers and 70 lawyers have been written. You will find on your forms a description, chosen at random from the 100 available descriptions. Please indicate your probability that the person described is an engineer, on a scale from 0 to 100.

The same task has been performed by a panel of experts, who were highly accurate in assigning probabilities to the various descriptions. You will be paid a bonus to the extent that your estimate comes close to those of the expert panel.

[…] [Here is the description:] Jack is a 45-year-old man. He is married and has four children. He is generally conservative, careful, and ambitious. He shows no interest in political and social issues and spends most of his free time on his many hobbies, which include home carpentry, sailing, and mathematical puzzles.

The probability that Jack is one of the 30 engineers in the sample of 100 is ___%.

(Kahneman & Tversky, 1973, p. 241)

The key to this problem is the inclusion of stereotypical information that is strongly representative of one of the groups (in this case, engineers) but that is also inconsistent with the probability of group membership according to the base rate (in this case, 70% of the sample consists of lawyers). Kahneman and Tversky found that people tend to neglect or underweight the base rate and, instead, respond according to the stereotypical information (a finding that has been replicated many times; see Pennycook & Thompson, 2016, for a review). Remarkably, participants typically respond according to the stereotypes even in cases where extreme base rates (e.g., 997 lawyers and 3 engineers) are used (De Neys & Glumicic, 2008; Pennycook, Fugelsang, & Koehler, 2012; Pennycook & Thompson, 2012). The tendency to rely on simple heuristics (in this case, the representativeness heuristic) in the face of more appropriate information is, apparently, quite strong.

Similar results emerged from investigations of belief bias in the 1980s. For example, Evans, Barston, and Pollard (1983) found that the majority of participants accepted as valid a conclusion that was believable but that did not follow necessarily from the stated premises. For example: All flowers need water; roses need water; therefore, roses are flowers (this is an invalid syllogism). Findings of this sort formed the earliest support for dual-process theories of reasoning (e.g., Evans, 1989; see Frankish & Evans, 2009, for a historical overview), which distinguish between Type 1 (or “System 1”) processes that are autonomous, fast, and associative and Type 2 (or “System 2”) processes that are working memory dependent, slow, and serial (although there are many different perspectives on dual-process theory; see: De Neys, 2012; Evans, 2008; Evans & Stanovich, 2013; Pennycook, Fugelsang, & Koehler, 2015b; Sloman, 2014; Stanovich, 2005; Thompson, Prowse Turner, & Pennycook, 2011). The reason why humans fall prey to heuristics, biases, belief bias, and the like is because these effects are driven by intuitive cognitive processes that precede – and often supersede – more analytic ways of thinking. Dual-process theories also proliferated in social psychology (Chaiken & Trope, 1999).

An intuitionist backlash

The 1990s and early 2000s saw the emergence of some notable alternative perspectives on the previously assumed power of human reasoning. Perhaps ironically, one such broad perspective arose due to a backlash against Kahneman and Tversky’s heuristics and biases program of research (which, at least in my view, played a large role in the breakdown of the idea that human reasoning is some awe-inspiring faculty that keeps us rational). In the “great rationality debate” (Tetlock & Mellers, 2002), detractors argued that the heuristics and biases program focused on a “very narrow normative view” of rationality (Gigerenzer, 1991, p. 83) and that heuristics are actually quite smart (Gigerenzer, 2007; Gigerenzer, Todd, & the ABC Research Group, 1999). Ultimately, the debate was more about terminology than a dispute over the reality of the effects that Kahneman and Tversky (among others) uncovered.¹ Regardless, the emphasis on the “intelligence” of our gut feelings represents a strong intuitionist position that became popular in the 1990s (and continues today).

The intuitionist backlash was perhaps strongest in social (as opposed to cognitive) psychology. I will allow Paul Bloom to summarize:

There are countless demonstrations of how we are influenced by factors beyond our conscious control.

[…] College students who fill out a questionnaire about their political opinions when standing next to a dispenser of hand sanitizer become, at least for a moment, more politically conservative than those standing next to an empty wall. Those who fill out a survey in a room that smells bad become more disapproving of gay men. Shoppers walking past a good-smelling bakery are more likely to make change for a stranger. Subjects favor job applicants whose résumés are presented to them on heavy clipboards. Supposedly egalitarian white people who are under time pressure are more likely to misidentify a tool as a gun after being shown a photo of a black male face. People are more likely to vote for sales taxes that will fund education when the polling place is in a school.

(2017, pp. 221–222)

The emergence of subtle counterintuitive effects in social psychology (however unlikely their replication may be; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) led to a gradual diminishing of the presumed role of reflective processes (Bloom, 2014). This is perhaps most strongly exemplified by Jonathan Haidt’s social-intuitionist model wherein reflective reasoning processes are thought to be used primarily for motivated reasoning and rationalization (Haidt, 2001, 2012). According to Haidt (2001), human reasoning is “more like a lawyer defending a client than a judge or scientist seeking truth” (p. 820).

The new reflectionism

It is becoming increasingly apparent than the pendulum has swung too far toward intuitionism (Baumeister, Masicampo, & Vohs, 2011; Evans, 2013; Evans & Stanovich, 2013; Kahneman, 2011; Newell & Shanks, 2014; Stanovich, 2005; Weber & Johnson, 2009). For example, research on conflict detection during reasoning has demonstrated that people can recognize (if implicitly) that they might be making an error on Kahneman and Tversky’s classic heuristics and biases tasks (De Neys, 2012, 2014). For Bloom (2017), our capacity to think analytically allows us to, at least, recognize errors when they are pointed out to us (this is precisely why the examples offered above are so interesting!). Moreover, the capacity to think analytically (intelligence) is predictive of a wide range of outcomes, from school grades to job performance to longevity (Ritchie, 2015). The death of reason has been overstated.

The present volume focuses on some of the more surprising avenues where reason matters (Pennycook, Fugelsang, & Koehler, 2015a). One could argue that, for example, intelligence correlates with a number of important life-outcomes because it merely facilitates the development of smart intuitions. Or, perhaps, that conflict detection during reasoning may only trigger analytic thought that leads to rationalization and motivated reasoning (for a more detailed review of this issue, see Pennycook, Fugelsang, & Koehler, 2015b). Moreover, people may recognize their errors when told, but there are some errors that people do not appear to be aware of (Pennycook, Ross, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2017). Take, for example, the now famous bat-and-ball problem: “A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?” (Frederick, 2005, p. 26).

This problem reveals some important features of our cognitive architecture. First, the problem appears to be very simple, but it is actually quite difficult. Most people respond with “10 cents,” which comes to mind automatically and intuitively (Campitelli & Gerrans, 2014; Pennycook, Cheyne, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2016). However, this is not the correct answer (if the ball was 10 cents, the bat would cost $1.10 and together they would cost $1.20). The math required to realize that the intuitive answer of “10 cents” is incorrect is not at all advanced and, once explained, obvious to anyone who has basic mathematical knowledge.

The key to the bat-and-ball problem (and others like it) is that the reasoner must question their intuition. That is, insofar as the intuitive response comes to mind for most people, getting the correct answer requires the participant to stop and question a response that, at least initially, seems correct. As a consequence, the problem indexes (to some degree) a willingness or propensity to think analytically (as opposed to mere numeracy or intelligence; see Pennycook & Ross, 2016; Toplak, West, & Stanovich, 2011). According to the rationalist perspective, this is an incredibly important faculty. The question, then, is how well do problems such as the bat-and-ball problem predict psychological outcomes that people care about (Pennycook, Fugelsang, & Koehler, 2015a)? Does the mere propensity to reason matter? This is the focus of the present volume.

Brief chapter overviews

Chapter 2: Reflective thought, religious belief, and the social foundations hypothesis (Jonathan Morgan, Connor Wood, & Catherine Caldwell-Harris, Boston University)

Morgan, Wood, and Caldwell-Harris review research indicating that the propensity to think analytically is negatively associated with religious belief. They also report additional evidence that triggering analytic thought actually decreases religious belief. A novel explanation of this association is offered: The social foundations hypothesis. The authors argue that social density plays an important role in whether it is socially acceptable to question religious beliefs. In short, socially dense societies do not provide the conditions under which reflection is likely to undermine religious belief. Evidence for the social foundations hypothesis is discussed.

Chapter 3: Towards understanding intuition and reason in paranormal beliefs (Marjaana Lindeman, University of Helsinki)

This chapter provides an overview of dual-process accounts of paranormal and supernatural beliefs. Lindeman reviews evidence from both questionnaire and behavioral measures that show a negative correlation between analytic thinking and belief in the paranormal. Research on superstitious thinking is also reviewed along with the important topic of core knowledge confusions. For example, paranormal believ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• 1. Why reason matters: An introduction
• 2. Reflective thought, religious belief, and the social foundations hypothesis
• 3. Towards understanding intuition and reason in paranormal beliefs
• 4. The Earth is flat! Or is it?: How thinking analytically might just convince you the Earth isn’t flat
• 5. The Moral Myopia Model: Why and how reasoning matters in moral judgment
• 6. Intuition, reason, and creativity: An integrative dual-process perspective
• 7. Why reason matters: Connecting research on human reason to the challenges of the Anthropocene
• Index