A framework for understanding reasoning errors: From fake news to climate change and beyond

Pennycook, Gordon

doi:10.1016/bs.aesp.2022.11.003

Cited by 37 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 388 publications

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“…Our research also speaks to the role of cognitive sophistication in the success of deliberation—an aspect that has been key to recent developments in the dual-process literature ( 29 , 42 , 43 , 67 ). Two distinct factors that are often mentioned as key to the success of deliberation are fluid intelligence (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…In fact, such strategies will only serve to increase partisan differences ( 10 , 23 , 24 ) (although there is evidence questioning this assumption ( 25–27 )). Furthermore, from a theoretical perspective, this “MS2R” account stands in stark contrast to a common dual-process perspective—the “classical reasoning” view—whereby system 2 reasoning is thought to typically facilitate accuracy in a variety of decision-making tasks ( 18 , 28 , 29 ). Put differently, the classical reasoning account posits that when people engage in deliberation, they tend to form more accurate beliefs, regardless of the partisan or identity alignment of the propositions that they are deliberating about ( 29 , 30 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Reasoning about climate change

2023

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Why is disbelief in anthropogenic climate change common despite broad scientific consensus to the contrary? A widely held explanation involves politically motivated (system 2) reasoning: Rather than helping uncover the truth, people use their reasoning abilities to protect their partisan identities and reject beliefs that threaten those identities. Despite the popularity of this account, the evidence supporting it (i) does not account for the fact that partisanship is confounded with prior beliefs about the world and (ii) is entirely correlational with respect to the effect of reasoning. Here, we address these shortcomings by (i) measuring prior beliefs and (ii) experimentally manipulating participants’ extent of reasoning using cognitive load and time pressure while they evaluate arguments for or against anthropogenic global warming. The results provide no support for the politically motivated system 2 reasoning account over other accounts: Engaging in more reasoning led people to have greater coherence between judgments and their prior beliefs about climate change—a process that can be consistent with rational (unbiased) Bayesian reasoning—and did not exacerbate the impact of partisanship once prior beliefs are accounted for.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Reasoning about climate change

2023

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“…Although these are interesting to study thinking in a controlled setting it is also clear that in daily life we typically do not reason about the cost of a bat and a ball or whether we should push a fat man off a footbridge. Focusing on informal argumentation and communication (e.g., Oaksford ; Hahn, 2020; Mercier, 2021) or attempts to use a dual-process approach to study science misperception and misinformation spreading (e.g., Pennycook [2023], for an excellent overview) might prove especially relevant here. I agree that this remains an important challenge for the framework I presented.…”

Section: Extensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Further advancing fast-and-slow theorizing

Neys

2023

Behav Brain Sci

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The 34 commentaries on the target article span a broad range of interesting issues. I have organized my reply around five major themes that seemed to emerge: Remarks about the generalizability of the empirical findings, links with other models, necessary extensions, the utility of dual-process models, and more specific points. This allows me to clarify possible misconceptions and identify avenues for further advancement.

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“…In my past work, I have focused on the potential role of response conflict in triggering deliberation (Pennycook, 2023; Pennycook, Fugelsang, & Koehler, 2015) – that is, cases where the system detects a conflict between intuitive outputs lead to subsequent deliberation. The three-stage dual-process model separates the initial “intuition” stage (where processes are initiated autonomously) from the subsequent “metacognition” stage (where conflicts between outputs of stage 1 are monitored).…”

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confidence: 99%

Deliberation is (probably) triggered and sustained by multiple mechanisms

Pennycook

2023

Behav Brain Sci

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De Neys proposes that deliberation is triggered and sustained by uncertainty. I argue that there are cases where deliberation occurs with low uncertainty – such as when problems are excessively complicated and the reasoner decides against engaging in deliberation – and that there are likely multiple factors that lead to (or undermine) deliberation. Nonetheless, De Neys is correct to surface these issues.

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A framework for understanding reasoning errors: From fake news to climate change and beyond

Cited by 37 publications

References 388 publications

Reasoning about climate change

Reasoning about climate change

Further advancing fast-and-slow theorizing

Deliberation is (probably) triggered and sustained by multiple mechanisms

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