Cognitive miserliness in argument literacy? Effects of intuitive and analytic thinking on recognizing fallacies

Annika M. Svedholm-Häkkinen and Mika Kiikeri

Judgment and Decision Making, 2022, vol. 17, issue 2, 331-361

Abstract: Fallacies are a particular type of informal argument that are psychologically compelling and often used for rhetorical purposes. Fallacies are unreasonable because the reasons they provide for their claims are irrelevant or insufficient. Ability to recognize the weakness of fallacies is part of what we call argument literacy and imporatant in rational thinking. Here we examine classic fallacies of types found in textbooks. In an experiment, participants evaluated the quality of fallacies and reasonable arguments. We instructed participants to think either intuitively, using their first impressions, or analytically, using rational deliberation. We analyzed responses, response times, and cursor trajectories (captured using mouse tracking). The results indicate that instructions to think analytically made people spend more time on the task but did not make them change their minds more often. When participants made errors, they were drawn towards the correct response, while responding correctly was more straightforward. The results are compatible with “smart intuition” accounts of dual-process theories of reasoning, rather than with corrective default-interventionist accounts. The findings are discussed in relation to whether theories developed to account for formal reasoning can help to explain the processing of everyday arguments.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:17:y:2022:i:2:p:331-361_5

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Judgment and Decision Making from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().