The previous research attempts to reduce the influence of the belief bias on deductive thinking have often been unsuccessful and, when they succeeded, they failed to replicate. In this paper, we propose a new way to see an old problem. Instead of considering the analytical abilities of the respondent, we focus on the communicative characteristics of the experimental task. By changing the pragmatics into play through a subtle manipulation of the instruction of the syllogism problem, we obtained a strong improvement in the accuracy of the performance in both untrained and trained in logic respondents. We suggest that current models of deductive thinking should be broadened to consider also communicative understanding as part of the processing of the problem.

Macchi, L., Poli, F., Caravona, L., Vezzoli, M., Franchella, M., Bagassi, M. (2019). How to get rid of the belief bias: Boosting analytical thinking via pragmatics. EUROPE'S JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY, 15(3), 595-613 [10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794].

How to get rid of the belief bias: Boosting analytical thinking via pragmatics

Macchi, Laura
Primo
;
CARAVONA, LAURA
;
VEZZOLI, MICHELA
;
Bagassi, Maria
Ultimo
2019

Abstract

The previous research attempts to reduce the influence of the belief bias on deductive thinking have often been unsuccessful and, when they succeeded, they failed to replicate. In this paper, we propose a new way to see an old problem. Instead of considering the analytical abilities of the respondent, we focus on the communicative characteristics of the experimental task. By changing the pragmatics into play through a subtle manipulation of the instruction of the syllogism problem, we obtained a strong improvement in the accuracy of the performance in both untrained and trained in logic respondents. We suggest that current models of deductive thinking should be broadened to consider also communicative understanding as part of the processing of the problem.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
belief bias, categorical syllogism, pragmatics, analytical thinking, dual-process theories
English
2019
15
3
595
613
open
Macchi, L., Poli, F., Caravona, L., Vezzoli, M., Franchella, M., Bagassi, M. (2019). How to get rid of the belief bias: Boosting analytical thinking via pragmatics. EUROPE'S JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY, 15(3), 595-613 [10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/245950
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