Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ph5wq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T11:06:30.822Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Towards a descriptivist psychology of reasoning and decision making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Jonathan St. B. T. Evans
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, United Kingdom. jevans@plymouth.ac.ukhttp://www.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/jevans
Shira Elqayam
Affiliation:
Division of Psychology, School of Applied Social Sciences, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, United Kingdom. selqayam@dmu.ac.ukhttp://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/elqayam

Abstract

Our target article identified normativism as the view that rationality should be evaluated against unconditional normative standards. We believe this to be entrenched in the psychological study of reasoning and decision making and argued that it is damaging to this empirical area of study, calling instead for a descriptivist psychology of reasoning and decision making. The views of 29 commentators (from philosophy and cognitive science as well as psychology) were mixed, including some staunch defences of normativism, but also a number that were broadly supportive of our position, although critical of various details. In particular, many defended a position that we call “soft normativism,” which sees a role for normative evaluation within boundaries alongside more descriptive research goals. In this response, we clarify our use of the term “instrumental rationality” and add discussion of “epistemic rationality,” defining both as descriptive and non-normative concepts. We consider the debate with reference to dual-process theory, the “new paradigm” psychology of reasoning, and empirical research strategy in these fields. We also discuss cognitive variation by age, intelligence, and culture, and the issue of relative versus absolute definitions of norms. In conclusion, we hope at least to have raised consciousness about the important boundaries between norm and description in the psychology of thinking.

Type
Authors' Response
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, J. R. (1978) Arguments concerning representations for mental imagery. Psychological Review 85:249–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargh, J. A., ed. (2006) Social psychology and the unconscious. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Buchtel, C. & Norenzayan, A. (2009) Thinking across cultures: Implications for dual processes. In: In two minds: Dual processes and beyond, ed. Evans, J. St. B. T. & Frankish, K., pp. 217–38. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, R. M. J. (2005) The rational imagination. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carruthers, P. (2009) How we know our own minds: The relationship between mindreading and metacognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32(3):121–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, L. J. (1981) Can human irrationality be experimentally demonstrated? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4:317–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. (1973) Radical interpretation. Dialectica 27:313–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elqayam, S. (2011) Grounded rationality: A relativist framework for normative rationality. In: The science of reason: A Festschrift in honour of Jonathan St. B. T. Evans, ed. Manktelow, K. I., Over, D. E. & Elqayam, S., pp. 397420. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, S. (1994) Integration of the cognitive and psychodynamic unconscious. American Psychologist 49:709–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, J. St. B. T. (2002) Logic and human reasoning: An assessment of the deduction paradigm. Psychological Bulletin 128:978–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, J. St. B. T. (2007) Hypothetical thinking: Dual processes in reasoning and judgement. Psychology Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, J. St. B. T. (2008) Dual-processing accounts of reasoning, judgment and social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology 59:255–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, J. St. B. T. (2010a) Intuition and reasoning: A dual-process perspective. Psychological Inquiry 21:313–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, J. St. B. T. (2010b) Thinking twice: Two minds in one brain. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, J. St. B. T. (in press a) Dual-process theories of reasoning: Facts and fallacies. In: The Oxford handbook of thinking and reasoning, ed. Holyoak, K. & Morrison, R. G.. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, J. St. B. T., Handley, S., Neilens, H., Bacon, A. M. & Over, D. E. (2010) The influence of cognitive ability and instructional set on causal conditional inference. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 63:892909.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, J. St. B. T., Handley, S. J., Perham, N., Over, D. E. & Thompson, V. A. (2000) Frequency versus probability formats in statistical word problems. Cognition 77:197213.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, J. St. B. T., Neilens, H., Handley, S. & Over, D. E. (2008) When can we say “if”? Cognition 108:100–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, J. St. B. T. & Over, D. E. (1996) Rationality and reasoning. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Evans, J. St. B. T. & Wason, P. C. (1976) Rationalisation in a reasoning task. British Journal of Psychology 63:205–12.Google Scholar
Evans, N. & Levinson, S. C. (2009) The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32(5):429–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feeney, A. & Heit, E., eds. (2007) Inductive reasoning: Experimental, developmental and computational approaches. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Frankena, W. (1939) The naturalistic fallacy. Mind 48:464–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, N. (1965) Fact, fiction, and forecast. Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J. & Norenzayan, A. (2010) The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33(2):6183.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hogarth, R. M. & Einhorn, H. J. (1992) Order effects in belief updating: The belief adjustment model. Cognitive Psychology 24:155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, M. & Love, B. C. (2011) Bayesian Fundamentalism or Enlightenment? On the explanatory status and theoretical contributions of Bayesian models of cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34(4):169231.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lucas, E. J. & Ball, L. J. (2005) Think-aloud protocols and the selection task: Evidence for relevance effects and rationalisation processes. Thinking and Reasoning 11(1):3566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manktelow, K. I. & Over, D. E. (1991) Social roles and utilities in reasoning with deontic conditionals. Cognition 39:85105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Manktelow, K. I., Over, D. E. & Elqayam, S., eds. (2011) The science of reason: A Festschrift for Jonathan St B. T. Evans. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Marr, D. (1982) Vision: A computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information. W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Nickerson, R. S. (2008) Aspects of rationality: Reflections on what it means to be rational and whether we are. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R., Peng, K., Choi, I. & Norenzayan, A. (2001) Culture and systems of thought: Holistic vs. analytic cognition. Psychological Review 108:291310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norenzayan, A. & Heine, S. J. (2005) Psychological universals: What are they and how can we know? Psychological Bulletin 131:763–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (1994) A rational analysis of the selection task as optimal data selection. Psychological Review 101:608–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (1998a) Rationality in an uncertain world. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (2007) Bayesian rationality: The probabilistic approach to human reasoning. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oaksford, M. & Chater, N., eds. (2010) Cognition and conditionals. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Platt, J. R. (1964) Strong inference. Science 164:347–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ricco, R. B. & Overton, W. F. (in press) Reasoning development and dual systems processing: Competence-procedural developmental systems theory. Developmental Review.Google Scholar
Schurz, G. (1997) The is-ought problem: An investigation in philosophical logic. Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. R. (1964) How to derive “ought” from “is”. Philosophical Review 73:4358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shynkarkuk, J. M. & Thompson, V. A. (2006) Confidence and accuracy in deductive reasoning. Memory and Cognition 34:619–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, H. A. (1982) Models of bounded rationality. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sloman, S. A. (2005) Causal models. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. (1999) Who is rational? Studies of individual differences in reasoning. Elrbaum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. (2004) The robot's rebellion: Finding meaning in the age of Darwin. Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. (2008) Higher-order preferences and the Master Rationality Motive. Thinking and Reasoning 14:111–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. (2009b) What intelligence tests miss: The psychology of rational thought. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. (2010b) Rationality and the reflective mind. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. (in press) The complexity of developmental predictions from dual processmodels. Developmental Review.Google Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. & West, R. F. (2000a) Advancing the rationality debate. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23:701–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. & West, R. F. (2007) Natural myside bias is independent of cognitive ability. Thinking & Reasoning 13:225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. & West, R. F. (2008) On the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94:672–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stein, E. (1996) Without good reason: The rationality debate in philosophy and cognitive science. Oxford University Press/Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Stenning, K. & van Lambalgen, M. (2008) Human reasoning and cognitive science. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stich, S. (1990) The fragmentation of reason: Preface to a pragmatic theory of cognitive evaluation. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wason, P.C. & Evans, J.St.B.T. (1975) Dual processes in reasoning? Cognition 3:141–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wegner, D. M. (2002) The illusion of conscious will. MIT Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberg, J. M. (2007) Moderate epistemic relativism and our epistemic goals. Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology 4(1):6692.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, B. (1985) Ethics and the limits of philosophy. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, T. D. (2002) Strangers to ourselves. Belknap Press.Google Scholar