The Development of Cognitive Reflection in China

Abstract

Cognitive reflection is the tendency to override an intuitive response so as to engage in the reflection necessary to derive a correct response. Here, we examine the emergence of cognitive reflection in a culture that values nonanalytic thinking styles, Chinese culture. We administered a child‐friendly version of the cognitive reflection test, the CRT‐D, to 130 adults and 111 school‐age children in China and compared performance on the CRT‐D to several measures of rational thinking (belief bias syllogisms, base rate sensitivity, denominator neglect, and other‐side thinking) and normative thinking dispositions (actively open‐minded thinking and need for cognition). The CRT‐D was a significant predictor of rational thinking and normative thinking dispositions in both children and adults, as previously found in American samples. Adults’ performance on the CRT‐D correlated with their performance on the original CRT, and children's performance on the CRT‐D predicted rational thinking and normative thinking dispositions even after adjusting for age. These results demonstrate that cognitive reflection, rational thinking, and normative thinking dispositions converge even in a culture that emphasizes holistic, nonanalytic reasoning.

The development of cognitive reflection

“…Anna Mo 2 and 9) to trick operations (questions 3 and 4), and spans topics as varied as cows, apples, and races. Yet despite this variation, the items on the CRT-D exhibit high internal reliability-as high as that of adult measures, if not higher (Gong et al, 2021;Young & Shtulman, 2020a).…”

“…Children from all regions exhibited the same developmental patterns observed in children in the US study: Their CRT‐D scores correlated with composite measures of rational thinking and normative thinking dispositions, as well as most individual tasks, regardless of age. Chinese adults exhibited the same pattern of correlations as US adults, indicating that the relation between cognitive reflection and rational thought is robust across ages and cultures (Gong et al, 2021).…”

“…The content covered by the CRT‐D ranges from trick associations (questions 5 and 8) to trick patterns (questions 2 and 9) to trick operations (questions 3 and 4), and spans topics as varied as cows, apples, and races. Yet despite this variation, the items on the CRT‐D exhibit high internal reliability—as high as that of adult measures, if not higher (Gong et al, 2021; Young & Shtulman, 2020a). The reasoning processes tapped by the CRT‐D appear to cohere across distinct facets of semantic knowledge.…”

“…In several studies, adults' CRT scores strongly predicted their adherence to normative principles of decision making (Frederick, 2005; Otero et al, 2022; Stanovich et al, 2016; Toplak et al, 2011). To determine whether the CRT‐D functions similarly for children, we and our colleagues recruited elementary school‐aged children from playgrounds in Pasadena, CA ( M age = 8 years, 1 month; 49% female) and assessed whether their performance on the CRT‐D predicted their performance on child‐friendly versions of heuristics and biases tasks (Gong et al, 2021; Young et al, 2018). The children in this study, as well as the other studies described later (Young & Shtulman, 2020a, 2020b), came from a community that is approximately 35% White (excluding Hispanic/Latino), 35% Hispanic or Latino, 18% Asian, and 8% Black; the community is largely middle class, with 14% of the population living below the poverty line (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021).…”

“…In a follow‐up study (Gong et al, 2021), the same tasks were administered to Chinese participants to determine whether the results from the US study reflected a general feature of cognitive reflection or were a byproduct of Western culture. Western culture's emphasis on analytic reasoning may drive the relation between cognitive reflection and rational thought.…”