Who Is Rational?: Studies of individual Differences in Reasoning

by Stanovich; Keith E.

• ISBN13: 9780805824735
• ISBN10: 0805824731
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-03-01
• Publisher: Psychology Pres

Summary

Integrating a decade-long program of empirical research with current cognitive theory, this book demonstrates that psychological research has profound implications for current debates about what it means to be rational. The author brings new evidence to bear on these issues by demonstrating that patterns of individual differences--largely ignored in disputes about human rationality--have strong implications for explanations of the gap between normative and descriptive models of human behavior. Separate chapters show how patterns of individual differences have implications for all of the major critiques of purported demonstrations of human irrationality in the heuristics and biases literature. In these critiques, it has been posited that experimenters have observed performance errors rather than systematically irrational responses; the tasks have required computational operations that exceed human cognitive capacity; experimenters have applied the wrong normative model to the task; and participants have misinterpreted the tasks. In a comprehensive set of studies, Stanovich demonstrates that gaps between normative and descriptive models of performance on some tasks can be accounted for by positing these alternative explanations, but that not all discrepancies from normative models can be so explained. Individual differences in rational thought can in part be predicted by psychological dispositions that are interpreted as characteristic biases in people's intentional-level psychologies. Presenting the most comprehensive examination of individual differences in the heuristics and biases literature that has yet been published, experiments and theoretical insights in this volume contextualize the heuristics and biases literature exemplified in the work of various investigators.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Conceptualizing Rationality: Some Preliminaries	1	(31)
Descriptive, Normative, and Prescriptive Models	3	(1)
Pretheoretical Positions on Human Rationality	4	(5)
Rationality and Levels of Analysis in Cognitive Science	9	(3)
A Framework for the Intentional Level	12	(5)
Philosophical Problems at the Intentional Level: Is Human Irrationality Possible?	17	(5)
Rationality and Evolution	22	(2)
Rationality and Reflective Equilibrium	24	(4)
Alternative Explanations for the Normative/Descriptive Gap	28	(2)
The Rest of This Book	30	(2)
Performance Errors and Computational Limitations	32	(21)
Richard F. West
Individual Differences and Performance Errors	32	(5)
Individual Differences and Computational Limitations	37	(11)
Conclusions Regarding Performance Errors and Computational Limitations	48	(5)
The Inappropriate Norm Argument	53	(45)
From the Descriptive to the Normative in Reasoning Experiments	56	(5)
Putting Descriptive Facts to Work: The Understanding/Acceptance Principle	61	(2)
Applying the Right Norms: Clues From Individual Differences	63	(5)
Examples of Normative Applications Undermined by the Understanding/Acceptance Principle	68	(10)
Noncausal Base Rates	68	(6)
The False-Consensus Effect	74	(4)
Explicating Normative Rules and the Understanding/Acceptance Principle	78	(8)
The Selection Task: Choosing P(D/~H)	79	(2)
The Selection Task: Choosing the Base Rate	81	(2)
Noncausal Base Rates: The Disease Problem	83	(3)
Examination of Other Problems With Controversial Norms	86	(6)
Newcomb's Problem	86	(2)
The Prisoner's Dilemma	88	(4)
Summary of Applications of the Understanding/Acceptance Principle	92	(3)
The Argument Evaluation Results and Reflective Equilibrium	95	(1)
Conclusion	96	(2)
The Problem of Rational Task Construal	98	(44)
The Necessity for Principles of Rational Construal	99	(4)
Alternative Construals and Problem Framing	103	(2)
Evaluating Principles of Rational Construal: The Understanding/Acceptance Principle Again	105	(2)
The Disease Problem	107	(1)
The Laundry Problem	108	(1)
Honoring Sunk Costs	109	(6)
Summary of Framing and Sunk Cost Results	115	(1)
The Overconfidence Effect in Knowledge Calibration	116	(5)
The Conjunction Fallacy	121	(6)
The Linda Problem	121	(3)
The Job Problem: An Easier Scenario	124	(1)
The Student Problem: Frequency Estimation	125	(2)
Alternative Construals of Conjunction Problems: A Summary	127	(1)
Alternative Construals of the Selection Task	128	(5)
Models of Selection Task Performance	133	(8)
Conclusions	141	(1)
Dual-Process Theories and Evolutionary Adaptation Versus Normative Rationality	142	(11)
Interactional Intelligence	143	(1)
A Generic Dual-Process Framework	144	(4)
Alternative Task Construals: Evolutionary Adaptation Versus Normative Rationality	148	(5)
Thinking Dispositions and Decontextualized Reasoning	153	(37)
Richard F. West
Walter C. Sa
Beyond Computational Limitations: Systematic Associations Among Reasoning Tasks	154	(2)
Beyond Computational Limitations: Systematic Associations With Thinking Dispositions	156	(3)
Distinguishing Cognitive Capacities and Thinking Dispositions	156	(2)
Levels of Analysis and Thinking Dispositions	158	(1)
Thinking Dispositions: An Empirical Study	159	(3)
Reasoning Independently of Prior Belief: Thinking Dispositions as Predictors of Argument Evaluation Ability	162	(8)
A New Analytic Strategy for Assessing Argument Evaluation Ability	163	(7)
Cognitive Decontextualization	170	(4)
A Direct Test of the Domain Generality of a Cognitive Decontextualization Skill	174	(15)
Summary	189	(1)
The Fundamental Computational Bias	190	(18)
The Pervasiveness of the Fundamental Computational Bias	193	(9)
The Fundamental Computational Bias and Evolutionary Adaptation	202	(1)
The Real-World Importance of Cognitive Decontextualization	203	(5)
Has Human Irrationality Been Empirically Demonstrated?	208	(45)
Performance Errors	209	(1)
Computational Limitations	209	(2)
Thinking Dispositions and Rational Thought	211	(1)
Reversing the Figure and Ground of Competence and Performance	212	(4)
Alternative Task Construals: A Pyrrhic Victory for the Panglossians	216	(7)
Alternative Task Construals: A Pyrrhic Victory for the Apologists	223	(5)
Questionable Task Interpretations	228	(3)
Why Normative Rationality Will Not Disappear	231	(3)
The Cultural Transmission of Norms and the Malleability of Computational Limitations	234	(2)
Education and Normative Rationality	236	(2)
Caveats and Clarifications	238	(11)
Assumptions Regarding Evolutionary Rationality and System 1 Processes	238	(1)
Alternative Interpretations of Relationships With Cognitive Ability	239	(2)
The Plausibility of Computational Limitations in Different Types of Tasks	241	(1)
Alternative Construal as a Computational Escape Hatch	241	(2)
Not All System 1 Overrides Are Efficacious	243	(1)
Normative and Evolutionary Rationality and the Rationality and Rationality2 of Evans and Over (1996)	243	(1)
Normative Rationality in the Belief Bias Situation: The Knowledge Projection Argument	244	(5)
Rationality and Pretheoretical Biases	249	(4)
References	253	(30)
Author Index	283	(10)
Subject Index	293