Role of responsibility in conditional reasoning.

Full Abstract

A series of recent studies showed that facilitation on the Wason Selection Task could be produced by perceived utilities. The present work was aimed at testing whether a similar factor could also be involved in human reasoning performance in the context of responsibility. We supposed that the motivation of the subject assuming responsibility is affected by normative goals. These goals prescribe the actions and the results to be achieved, also considering the different social roles. In this experiment the responses of different groups of subjects (N = 270) to a selection task were compared in two different conditions involving different responsibility contexts. The results show that the subjects' strategies in searching for possible violators depended on the condition (responsibility vs no responsibility). In particular, only in the context of responsibility were the performances elicited by conditional rules characterised by a falsification strategy.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Mancini, Francesco (F); Gangemi, Amelia (A);

Affiliation: Scuola di Specializzazione in Psicoterapia, Cognitiva Associazione di Psicologia Cognitiva, Roma, Italy. mancini(-atsign-)apc.it

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Psychological reports (Psychol Rep), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Aug; vol 91 (issue 1) : pp 275-88

Dates: Created 2002/09/30; Completed 2002/10/18; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12353792, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Affect
Decision Making
Female

This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.

See 100+ related articles.