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Example research essay topic: Evolutionary Theory Drinking Alcohol - 2,169 words

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Wason selection task, which consists of testing of a conditional rule, has urged a number of interpretation; according to normative theory of logic, deductive arguments should be evaluated on the basis of their form, not their content, however, the experiments show that actually people are influenced by the content of a task. This fact is proved by test results: people perform poorly when challenged by If vowel then even rule, but the performance was substantially increased when more familiar situation was presented If you are drinking beer then you must be aged 21 or older. This manifestation of human logic supports the pragmatic reasoning schema theory, the theory states that people do not follow formal logic, they reason using pragmatic schemas, which are basically maps of certain types of situations. For instance, In tests conducted by Almor and Sloman, people tend to evoke situations compatible with the presented card selection task and the actual logic of the rule stated in condition was often ignored. Therefore, perspective effects in the card selection task, primarily concerned not with how selection criteria is conveyed in the task itself, but with inferential mechanism of every individual tested. This supposition constitutes pragmatic theory, that is people cognition is based on the information collected from similar situations in the past.

However, test alterations that were made in a number of researches on the topic, yield different often converse results that, in turn, engender a greater number of interpretations. Wason's selection task has become the most studied deductive reasoning test in the psychology. The test has a great number of variations. The problem that was originally introduced by Wason, presented the testees with a rule of the form If P then Q and a set of cards to which the rule applies.

For example, subjects are told that a set of cards each has a letter on one side and a number on the other and presented cards showing A, D, 4, and 7, correspondingly, the card selection was to be completed in accordance with the rule, "If there is A on one side of a card then there is 4 on the other side that card. " Testees are then asked to select those cards, and only those cards, that are necessary to turn over in order to find out whether the rule is true or false. From the standpoint of formal logic, cards showing A and 7 (P and Not Q) should be selected, because these are the only cards that could lead to a counterexample when turned over (i. e. , to an instance of P and not Q), and only a counterexample falsifies a conditional. Wason task fame lies in the fact that fewer than 10 % of adult subjects chose the right cards: the most common selection is the card showing A or the combination of the cards showing A and 4 Wason's card selections task ultimately raises a question regarding human reasoning, specifically whether reasoning is based on domain-independent principle or, on the contrary, it is domain specific.

Some researches believe, as stated in the works of Cheng and Holyoak, 1985; Cosmides, 1989; Gigerenzer & Hug, 1992, that, as certain examples of social interactions show, human reasoning is guided by specialized principles. This principles represent some social convention ways that can be followed or ignored, this theory represent concept of demonic reasoning in human behavior. The theory of demonic reasoning is primarily based on a Wason four card selection task (Wason, 1966), initially offered as an evidence of peoples inability to follow formal logic. Some studies, for example Griggs & Cox, 1982; Griggs & Cox, 1983; Wason & Shapiro, 1971, even attempted to study various factors that alter human reasoning towards following formal logic. At present, the focus of the task interpretation largely shifted to understanding of the mechanism behind demonic reasoning. The theories that tried to explain Wason four card selection task touch ultimately touch the nature of human reasoning.

Evolutionary theory suggests that over the course of evolution people developed psychological and social patterns of what is sometimes called reciprocal altruism. According to the theory, in social exchange, our ancestors had to quickly determine who was vital for their survival and who is likely to provide necessary support. Leda Cosmides and John Today, researches from University of California, during their study of Evolutionary theory, discovered that Reasoning Instincts most evident when testees were presented a task that has a lot in common with real-life situation, when picking out social rule breakers, i. e. drug addicts or criminals. This finding clearly supports Evolutionary theory since people seem do be adept at recognizing benefit-cost tag of relationship.

According to the study seventy to ninety percent of the testees made correct choices on Wason test, while the same people made less than 25 % on less socially relevant problems. It should be noted, however, that cognition is influenced by a persons perspective. Gerd Gigerenzer, University of Chicago, and Klaus Hug, University of Salzburg, in their collaborative research, found that if the testee perceives the question from the one who receives benefit, they find logically correct answer for that position, the same is true then taste takes the position of a person providing the benefit, but it is not incorrect from the standpoint of the formal logic of the task. Therefore, this researches argue that Wason test is more accurate when the ambiguity of perception is eliminated. Gigerenzer and Hug do not generally argue against Evolutionary theory, however, Almor and Sloman in their work, Reasoning versus Text Processing in the Wason Selection Task - A Non-Deontic Perspective on Perspective Effects, show that people, in social situations, do not follow some intrinsic sets of rules, but cognate using a pattern peculiar to a comparable real-life situation, in other words, they refer to a similar situation for clues. Manktelow and Over (1991) further proposed that demonic conditional suggest subjective utilities, and people take these into conservation than making decisions in demonic situations.

Utilities that people look for in making judgements, indicate agents in a demonic situation, or party that makes a rule and a subject which has examined in conjunction with the rule. Therefore, people make judgments in demonic situations, by employing suppositions concerning the agents. Assertion that cognition in demonic situations involves utilities is further supported by various research on the topic. Johnson-Laird, Legrenzi, and Legrenzi (1972), for example, asked testees to pretend being postal workers who had to spot envelopes that violated the rule: If a letter is sealed, then it has a 50 lire stamp on it. Similarly, Griggs and Cox asked their subjects to be cops to determine potential rule breakers, the condition was: If a person is drinking alcohol, then that person must be over 19 years of age. " The cards were featuring a person drinking alcohol, a person drinking coke, a person over 19, and a person under 19. The results indicated a high percentage of right choices.

Cheng and Holyoak (1985) in their studies also used di ontic content familiar to the testees and thus more meaningful. Moreover, they employed conditions that resemble permission scheme that can be found in to real-live situations. Their test consisted of four rules: Rule 1. If the action is to be taken, then the precondition must be satisfied.

Rule 2. If the action is not to be taken, then the precondition need not be satisfied. Rule 3. If the precondition is satisfied, then the action may be taken. Rule 4.

If the precondition is not satisfied, then the action must not be taken. The set of rules contributed to the right choices because the antecedents of the first and fourth rules correspond to those cards and the consequent's specify necessities. The not P and Q cards are not selected because they match to the antecedents of the second and third production rules, and the resultants of these two rules specify mere possibilities. The Cheng and Holyoak showed that people tend to perform even better if supplied with relevant content, but also if the reason for making the judgment is known.

The importance of clear understanding of the reason behind judgment rule even undermines the importance of contents relevancy. The same study of Cheng and Holyoak involved a test of an abstract-content problem with a permission rule to an abstract-content problem with a nondeontic rule similar to the standard version of the task; the abstract permission-rule problem led to P and not Q choices notably more often than did the abstract non-pragmatic rule problem. This particular tests deserves special attention, therefore vital particulars need to be presented. In the one test, the abstract permission-rule problem said: Imagine yourself as an authority supposed to check if people obey a certain rule. The regulation all have the general form, "If one is to take action A, then one must first satisfy precondition P. " To put it differently, to get permission to do A, one must first have completed prerequisite P. The cards provide information on four people: one side of the card indicates whether or not a person has taken action A, the other indicates whether or not the same individual has fulfilled precondition P.

You should turn over the cards that break the regulation. In order to check that a certain regulation is being followed, which of the cards below would you turn over. Four cards stating the four possible cases: "has taken action A, "has not taken action A, "has fulfilled precondition P, " and "has not fulfilled precondition P. " The non pragmatic-rule problem stated: Below are four cards. Every card has a letter on one side and a number on the other.

Your task is to decide which of the cards you need to turn over in order to find out whether or no a certain rule is being followed. The rule is: "If a card has an A on one side, then it must have a 4 on the other side. " Turn over only those cards that you need to check to be sure. " Drawings of four cards followed, showing four possible cases: "A, "B (i. e. , not A), " 4, " and " 7 (i. e. , not 4). " Some physiologists, however, argue that the positive results of the tests have little to do with permission rule.

For example, Jackson and Griggs (1990) commented that the abstract permission-rule problem had a context examination in contrast to non pragmatic-rule problem, which had no such context. Again, according to Jackson and Griggs (1990), the second and fourth cards in the permission-rule test showed their negatives explicitly ("has not taken Action A, " and "has not fulfilled Precondition P"), whereas the corresponding cards in the non pragmatic-rule problem stated the negatives less obviously. This was represented by the parenthetical comment about their negative status, i. e. , "B (i.

e. , not A), " and " 7 (i. e. , not 4). " A number of researchers i. e. Grigs and Cox, Kroger et al. , claim that Wason test performance is demonic-relevant. Taking into account this consideration, a problem with a permission rule can stir up the permission schema with its four production rules, but a problem lacking this rule has no schema that it can engage. The checking context can aid in evocation of the permission schema, although context is not the only agent that can bring up the schema.

The use of instructions to seek potentially wrong instances leads to a failure to engage the permission schema, because the four production rules relate only to the discovery of potential violators and not to testing the rule. Researches that favor pragmatic theory argue that a problem will be solved when it includes the following: a pragmatic rule, followed by a schema, clearly stated negatives in the cards that make the situation diontically relevant. Checking content is also helpful since it can evoke pragmatic schema. Tests that include spotting rule breakers generally yield better results because supposedly their invoke strong pragmatic schemas that are absent in tasks requiring falsification. At present, as the above evidence suggest, pragmatic theory seem to explain best the results obtained from Wason selection task test. People show overwhelmingly better performance when faced with di ontic context.

This imply that each individual creates a database of schemes that can be invoked by presenting with a task similar to real life social situations. References Cheng, P. W. & Holyoak, K. (1985). Pragmatic reasoning schemas.

Cognitive Psychology, 17, 391 - 416. Cosmides, L. (1989). The logic of social exchange: has natural selection shaped how humans reason? Studies with Wason selection task.

Cognition, 31, 187 - 276. Giotto, V. , Gilly, M. , Black, A. , & Light, P. H. (1989). Children's performance on the selection task: Plausibility and familiarity. British Journal of Psychology, 80, 79 - 95. Griggs, R.

A. (1989). To see or not to see: That is the selection task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41 A, 517 - 529.


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Research essay sample on Evolutionary Theory Drinking Alcohol

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