When Type 2 Processing Misfires: The Indiscriminate Use of Statistical Thinking about Reasoning Problems

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Judgment and Decision-Making

Background:

• Dual-process theories of judgment often use reasoning problems pitting intuitive (Type 1) against rule-based (Type 2) responses.
• Existing tasks lack methods to differentiate adequate from inadequate rule application.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and test experimental methods for discriminating between sound and unsound rule use in judgment tasks.
• To investigate whether participants can differentiate between genuine and spurious conflict in reasoning.

Main Methods:

• Developed rule-inadequate versions of standard base-rate problems, rendering base rates irrelevant.
• Conducted four experiments measuring response latencies and confidence to assess conflict sensitivity.

Main Results:

• Participants exhibited conflict sensitivity on both standard and rule-inadequate base-rate problems.
• Failure to discriminate between real and spurious conflict was observed across experiments.

Conclusions:

• Participants frequently misuse statistical information, relying on irrelevant base rates.
• Assuming sound statistical rule use based solely on correct responses to conflict problems may be misleading without controlling for reasoning biases.