Abstract

A key component of the susceptibility to cognitive biases is the ability to monitor for conflict between intuitively cued “heuristic” answers and logical principles. While there is evidence that people differ in their ability to detect such conflicts, it is not clear which factors are driving these differences. In the present study (N = 399) we explored cognitive ability, thinking dispositions, numeracy, cognitive reflection, and mindware instantiation (i.e., knowledge of logical principles) as predictors of individual differences in conflict detection and accuracy on a battery of reasoning problems. Results showed that mindware instantiation was the best predictor of both conflict detection efficiency and reasoning accuracy. Cognitive reflection, thinking dispositions, numeracy, and cognitive ability played a significant but smaller role. The regression model explained 40% of the variance in reasoning accuracy, but only 7% in detection efficiency. We discuss the implications of these findings for popular process models of bias susceptibility.

摘要

认知偏差易感性的关键组成部分是能够监视直观提示的“启发式”答案与逻辑原理之间的冲突的能力。尽管有证据表明人们发现此类冲突的能力有所不同，但尚不清楚是哪些因素导致了这些差异。在本研究中（Ñ = 399），我们探索了认知能力，思维能力，计算能力，认知反射和思维软件实例化（即逻辑原理知识），作为对一系列推理问题中冲突检测和准确性的个体差异的预测指标。结果表明，思维软件实例是冲突检测效率和推理准确性的最佳预测指标。认知反射，思维倾向，计算能力和认知能力起着重要但较小的作用。回归模型解释了40％的推理准确性方差，但仅解释了7％的检测效率。我们讨论了这些发现对偏倚敏感性的流行过程模型的影响。