Myside Bias, Rational Thinking, and Intelligence

First Published August 5, 2013 Research Article

Authors

1
 
University of Toronto
by this author
, 2
 
James Madison University
by this author
, 3
 
York University
by this author
First Published Online: August 5, 2013

Myside bias occurs when people evaluate evidence, generate evidence, and test hypotheses in a manner biased toward their own prior opinions and attitudes. Research across a wide variety of myside bias paradigms has revealed a somewhat surprising finding regarding individual differences. The magnitude of the myside bias shows very little relation to intelligence. Avoiding myside bias is thus one rational thinking skill that is not assessed by intelligence tests or even indirectly indexed through its correlation with cognitive ability measures.

Baron, J. (1995). Myside bias in thinking about abortion. Thinking & Reasoning, 1, 221235.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Baron, J. (2008). Thinking and deciding (4th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar
Evans, J. St. B. T. (2002). The influence of prior belief on scientific thinking. In Carruthers, P., Stich, S., Siegal, M. (Eds.), The cognitive basis of science (pp. 193210). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Kahneman, D. (2000). A psychological point of view: Violations of rational rules as a diagnostic of mental processes. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 681683.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Google Scholar
Klaczynski, P. A. (1997). Bias in adolescents’ everyday reasoning and its relationship with intellectual ability, personal theories, and self-serving motivation. Developmental Psychology, 33, 273283.
Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline
Klaczynski, P. A., Lavallee, K. L. (2005). Domain-specific identity, epistemic regulation, and intellectual ability as predictors of belief-based reasoning: A dual-process perspective. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 124.
Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline
Klaczynski, P. A., Robinson, B. (2000). Personal theories, intellectual ability, and epistemological beliefs: Adult age differences in everyday reasoning tasks. Psychology and Aging, 15, 400416.
Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline
Kuhn, D. (1991). The skills of argument. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar | Crossref
McKenzie, C. R. M. (2004). Hypothesis testing and evaluation. In Koehler, D. J., Harvey, N. (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of judgment & decision making (pp. 200219). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Google Scholar | Crossref
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U. S. Department of Transportation . (2000). Vehicle design versus aggressivity (DOT HS 809 194). Retrieved from http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NRD/Multimedia/PDFs/Crashworthiness/Aggressivity%20&%20Fleet%20Compatibility/DOT_HS_809194.pdf.
Google Scholar
Perkins, D. N. (1985). Postprimary education has little impact on informal reasoning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 562571.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Perkins, D. N., Farady, M., Bushey, B. (1991). Everyday reasoning and the roots of intelligence. In Voss, J., Perkins, D., Segal, J. (Eds.), Informal reasoning and education (pp. 83105). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Google Scholar
Sá, W., Kelley, C., Ho, C., Stanovich, K. E. (2005). Thinking about personal theories: Individual differences in the coordination of theory and evidence. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 11491161.
Google Scholar | Crossref
Stanovich, K. E. (2009). What intelligence tests miss: The psychology of rational thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Google Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. (2011). Rationality and the reflective mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F. (1998). Individual differences in rational thought. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127, 161188.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F. (2007). Natural myside bias is independent of cognitive ability. Thinking & Reasoning, 13, 225247.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F. (2008a). On the failure of intelligence to predict myside bias and one-sided bias. Thinking & Reasoning, 14, 129167.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F. (2008b). On the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 672695.
Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI
Taber, C. S., Lodge, M. (2006). Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science, 50, 755769.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Toplak, M. E., Stanovich, K. E. (2003). Associations between myside bias on an informal reasoning task and amount of post-secondary education. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 851860.
Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI
Westen, D., Blagov, P., Harenski, K., Kilts, C., Hamann, S. (2006). Neural bases of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on partisan political judgment in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 19471958.
Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI
Wolfe, C. R., Britt, M. A. (2008). The locus of the myside bias in written argumentation. Thinking & Reasoning, 14, 127.
Google Scholar | Crossref

Access content

To read the fulltext, please use one of the options below to sign in or purchase access.
  • Access Options

    My Account

    Welcome
    You do not have access to this content.

    Chinese Institutions / 中国用户

    Click the button below for the full-text content

    请点击以下获取该全文

    Institutional Access

    does not have access to this content.

    Purchase Content

    24 hours online access to download content

    Added to Cart

    Cart is full

    There is currently no price available for this item in your region.

    Research off-campus without worrying about access issues. Find out about Lean Library here


Purchase

CDP-article-ppv for GBP27.00
CDP-article-ppv for $35.00

Cookies Notification

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Find out more.
Top