The Effects of Belief on the Spontaneous Production of Syllogistic Conclusions

Abstract

Two experiments examined the effects of subjects’ beliefs on syllogistic inference. The first experiment showed that beliefs biased the spontaneous conclusions that subjects drew for themselves. These effects were more marked for indeterminate premises (which yield no non-trivial valid conclusions) than for determinate premises (which yield valid conclusions). There was also an effect of the nature of the beliefs: conclusions that were false by definition had a bigger effect on deductions than those that were false as a matter of fact. The second experiment replicated the finding for determinate syllogisms, using problems in moods in which the status of the valid conclusion could not be altered by conversion of the premises. Beliefs accordingly appear to affect the process of reasoning rather than the interpretation of premises.