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Related Experiment Videos

Domain-specific reasoning: social contracts, cheating, and perspective change.

G Gigerenzer1, K Hug

  • 1Institute of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Austria.

Cognition
|May 1, 1992
PubMed
Summary

Human rationality involves adaptive reasoning, not just formal logic. This study shows that understanding the perspective of being cheated in social contracts is key to effective reasoning, supporting evolutionary approaches.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Behavioral Economics

Background:

  • Human rationality is debated: formal logic vs. adaptive problem-solving.
  • Most theories focus on content-independent rationality, neglecting evolutionary approaches.
  • Adaptive reasoning and its ecological/evolutionary basis are underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To elaborate and test an evolutionary approach to human reasoning.
  • To disentangle the concepts of social contracts and cheater-detection algorithms.
  • To investigate the role of perspective-taking in social contract reasoning.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized the Wason selection task to test social contract theory.
  • Distinguished between social contracts with bilateral and unilateral cheating options.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analyzed reasoning based on semantic rule meaning versus pragmatic perspective.

    • Main Results:

    • Perceiving a rule as a social contract alone is insufficient for specific reasoning outcomes.
    • Reasoning effectiveness hinges on being cued into the perspective of a potential victim of cheating.
    • Perspective change in bilateral cheating contracts shifts reasoning patterns (P & not-Q to not-P & Q).

    Conclusions:

    • Results strongly support social contract theory.
    • Findings contradict availability theory and pragmatic reasoning schema theory.
    • Cheater-detection and perspective-taking are crucial pragmatic concepts in social contract reasoning.