Prior belief influences on reasoning and judgment, a multivariate investigation of individual differences in belief bias

grantor: University of TorontoBelief bias occurs when reasoning or judgments are found to be overly influenced by prior belief at the expense of a normatively prescribed accommodation of all the relevant data. The normative status and domain specificity/generality of belief bias was investigated in a multivariate investigation. The research reported here also examined the role of cognitive capacity and thinking dispositions on belief bias. Cognitive capacity deals with those parameters of interest to traditional tests of psychometric intelligence whereas thinking dispositions captures those parameters that deal with what can be thought of as the goals of the reasoner--how the capacities are put to use. A total of 124 participants recruited through an undergraduate university population participated in the study. Results suggested that belief bias is best interpreted as a nonnormative tendency in human reasoning and judgment. Furthermore, some moderate correlations among indices of belief bias across domains as varied as deductive reasoning and perceptual judgment suggest belief bias has some degree of domain generality. Finally, the results also suggest that both cognitive capacity and thinking dispositions account for some unique variance in belief bias. The results for this last finding, however, was moderated by the type of reasoning or judgments participants were asked to make.Ph.D