Analytic cognitive style, not delusional ideation, predicts data gathering in a large beads task study

ABSTRACT

Introduction: It has been proposed that deluded and delusion-prone individuals gather less evidence before forming beliefs than those who are not deluded or delusion-prone. The primary source of evidence for this “jumping to conclusions” (JTC) bias is provided by research that utilises the “beads task” data-gathering paradigm. However, the cognitive mechanisms subserving data gathering in this task are poorly understood.

Methods: In the largest published beads task study to date (n = 558), we examined data gathering in the context of influential dual-process theories of reasoning.

Results: Analytic cognitive style (the willingness or disposition to critically evaluate outputs from intuitive processing and engage in effortful analytic processing) predicted data gathering in a non-clinical sample, but delusional ideation did not.

Conclusion: The relationship between data gathering and analytic cognitive style suggests that dual-process theories of reasoning can contribute to our understanding of the beads task. It is not clear why delusional ideation was not found to be associated with data gathering or analytic cognitive style.

KEYWORDS:

• Beads task
• cognitive style
• delusion
• dual-process theory
• jumping to conclusions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Some of these authors refer to “System 1” and “System 2”, or “Stream 1” and “Stream 2”. However, “Type 1” and “Type 2” are now recommended as the most appropriate technical terms, see Evans and Stanovich (2013). For a rather different approach to explaining delusions using dual-process theories of reasoning, see Frankish (2009).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders [grant number CE110001021] (R. L. & M. C.); Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship [grant number FT110100631] (R. L.); Macquarie University – MQRES PhD scholarship (R. M. R.); Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada – PhD scholarship (G. P.).