The Interaction Between Beliefs and Rules: Examining Dual Process Accounts of Reasoning

Dual-process theories propose two qualitatively distinct processes governing reasoning and judgments; Intuitive Type 1 processes and deliberative Type 2 processes. Traditionally, relying on normative rules such as deductive logic was solely attributed to deliberative processes, whilst intuitive processes have been assumed to have minimal access to such rules. However, recent findings have shown that reasoners do appear to be intuitively sensitive to normative rules. This capability, which has been labelled “logical intuitions”, has led to the emergence of multiple theoretical models, all of which fall under the umbrella of dual process theory 2.0. This thesis investigates logical intuitions by asking whether experimental paradigms claiming to measure this phenomenon actually do so and whether logic is the true underlying mechanism of “logical intuitions”. We start by providing a background for dual-process theories, logical intuition models, and the unanswered questions about this concept, in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 presents the findings of 4 experiments showing that liking-logic and brightness-logic effects, as indexes of logical intuitions, are not measuring exactly the same phenomenon. The former, in fact, is associated with deliberative Type 2 thinking. Chapter 3 reports the findings of 3 experiments, which reveal that logical intuitions can also be found on logically invalid (i.e., pseudological) arguments that are syntactically matched to logically valid arguments. The findings suggest that logical intuitions might primarily arise through the operation of a matching heuristic rather than the evaluation of underlying logical structures. Chapter 4 presents the effect of logic training on the endorsement of pseudo-logical arguments across 2 experiments and reveals that teaching participants the basic logical principles of conditional rules is not effective in reducing the impact of the matching heuristic on intuitive judgments. Chapter 5 provides more direct evidence for the matching heuristic account by reversing, removing, and recreating the logical intuition effect by manipulating the matching of the argument’s elements whilst keeping the logical structures constant. Chapter 6 provides a summary of all the experiments and discusses the implications of the findings for logical intuition models, specifically, and dual-process theories, in general.