Are logical intuitions only make-believe? Reexamining the logic-liking effect

An ongoing debate in the literature on human reasoning concerns whether or not the logical status (valid vs. invalid) of an argument can be intuitively detected. The finding that conclusions of logically valid inferences are liked more compared to conclusions of logically invalid ones—called the logic-liking effect—is one of the most prominent pieces of evidence in support of this notion. Trippas et al. (2016) found this logic-liking effect for different kinds of inferences, including conditional and categorical syllogisms. However, all invalid conclusions presented by Trippas et al. (2016) were also impossible given the premises and had a particular structure of surface features—that is, an incongruent atmosphere. We present new data from five preregistered experiments in which we replicate the effect reported by Trippas et al. (2016) for conditional and categorical syllogisms but show that this effect is eliminated when controlling for confounds in surface features. Moreover, we present evidence that there is a demand effect at play, which suggests that people are deliberately considering atmosphere cues of an argument to inform their liking ratings. Taken together, the findings of the present study cast doubt on the existence of logical intuitions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved