Analysis of conditional reasoning biases in primary students

• Main Authors: Hui-Ying Lang, 郎慧瀛
• Other Authors: Wen-Ying Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/08491961527037615397

碩士 === 中原大學 === 心理學研究所 === 103 === Manktelow (1999) believes there are belief bias, confirmation bias, matching bias, and negative conclusion bias can be considered as influences in the process of reasoning. In conditional reasoning, belief bias makes people ignore the rules of logic, and tend to believe the conclusion more conform to their own belief is valid. Confirmation bias makes reasoners tend to believe that the minor term of a syllogism conform to their own belief is valid. Matching bias makes reasoners tend to believe the conditional has the same words between the minor term of a syllogism or conclusion and major term of a syllogism is valid. Negative conclusion bias makes reasoners making mistakes when the minor term of a syllogism describe negative, and tend to believe the conclusion describe negatively is valid. According to the past survey, the main reasons of having reasoning bias are from past experiences, logical knowledge and cognitive resource. The aim of this study attempts to explore the trend of the four reasoning bias and the possible causes of making reasoning bias. We assume that belief bias and confirmation bias are influenced by the past experiences. As people age, they are disposed to believe the conditional conform to their own experiences is more valid; matching bias and negative conclusion bias are mainly affected by cognitive loading. That makes the younger generation are more likely to believe the condition with repeat words is valid. This research adopts survey-experimental method with between-subject design, participants are 2nd. 4th and 6th students. Experiment 1 “Content effect of conclusion: Past experiences”. We assume the older participants are, the more experiences the have, and the easier they think conclusion of the conditional conform to their belief is valid, it decreases the correct response rate. The results revealed that past experiences may not be the main reason of belief bias. Experiment 2 “Content effect of minor term of a syllogism: Past experiences”. We assume the older participants are, the more experiences they have, and the easier they think the conditional of the minor term of a syllogism conform to their own belief is valid conclusion, so the correct response rate increased. The results revealed that past experiences may not be the main reason of confirmation bias. Experiment 3 “Matching of minor and major term of a syllogism: Cognitive resource”. We assume the older participants are, the more cognitive resource they have, and the easier follow the logical rules, so the correct response rate of matching group increased. The results revealed that the more or less cognitive resource is the main reason of matching bias. Experiment 4 “Matching of negative minor term of a syllogism and conclusion: Cognitive resource”. We assume the older participants are, the more cognitive resource they have, and the easier follow the logical rules, so the correct response rate of matching group increased. The results showed that cognitive resource may not be the main reason of negative conclusion bias. To conclude, past experiences and cognitive resource may not be the main reason of reasoning bias. However, the findings go against the past study, but we found the influence of logical knowledge does affect their performance. Future research should first test the logical knowledge of participants before testing other factors, so as to better understand the other reason of the reasoning bias.