Cognitive Processes Supporting Epistemic Rationality in Belief Formation and Revision

人们根据他们收集到的证据（例如，通过他们自己的观察、与其他人的对话和新闻媒体）形成和修改他们对世界的信念。然而，有时候，人们持有的信念似乎与他们所能获得的证据相反。学者和政策制定者强调，迫切需要更好地了解在数字连接的世界中促进证据不一致的信念（例如，关于寨卡病毒原因的阴谋论，否认气候变化）增长的条件。最近的认知心理学研究表明，这种“认知上的非理性”（与现有证据相矛盾的信念）并非源于缺乏智力，而是源于未能主动参与分析思维过程（例如，逻辑或统计推理）。提出的研究有三个目标，以进一步了解认知非理性背后的认知过程。首先，一系列认知任务将被开发出来，用来衡量作为信念形成和修正“基石”的各种基本过程的参与和执行情况（例如，假设的产生、对单个证据的诊断价值的评估、将所有证据结合起来得出整体信念评估、根据新证据更新现有信念）。这些任务将有助于评估人们在分析性思维倾向方面的系统性差异是局限于特定的潜在认知过程，还是具有更广泛的本质。其次，这些任务将被用来测试“合理性检查表”的有效性，该检查表通过促使人们根据现有证据评估和采用可用于评估目标信念的替代思维策略，从而鼓励更多地参与分析思维。第三，完成前两个目标的结果将应用于更复杂的现实世界信念和证据收集过程，例如通过互联网搜索现有证据来评估主张的有效性（例如，手机辐射危害健康）。拟议的研究将有助于新兴的认知理论，区分在算法（例如，学习规则的执行）和反射（例如，认知调节）水平上运行的推理过程。拟议研究的结果可以应用于发展更有效的公共沟通，例如政府服务机构，这些机构可以更好地适应人们如何得出与证据不一致的信念（例如，对证据支持的政策和计划产生抵制）。

People form and revise their beliefs about the world based on evidence they gather (e.g., through their own observations, conversations with other people, and the news media). Sometimes, though, people hold beliefs that seem to be contrary to the evidence available to them. Scholars and policy makers have underscored the urgency of better understanding conditions that foster the growth of evidence-inconsistent beliefs (e.g., conspiracy theories about the cause of the Zika virus, denial of climate change) in a digitally-connected world. Recent research in cognitive psychology suggests that such “epistemic irrationality” (beliefs that contradict the available evidence) stems, not from a lack of intelligence, but rather from a failure to voluntarily engage analytic thinking processes (e.g., logical or statistical reasoning). The proposed research has three objectives to further our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying epistemic irrationality. First, a collection of cognitive tasks will be developed that measure the engagement and execution of various fundamental processes that serve as “building blocks” in the formation and revision of beliefs (e.g., generation of hypotheses, evaluation of the diagnostic value of individual pieces of evidence, combination of all the evidence to arrive at an overall belief assessment, updating of existing beliefs in light of new evidence). These tasks will allow assessment of whether systematic differences between people in their inclination to engage in analytic thinking are restricted to specific underlying cognitive processes or are more global in nature. Second, these tasks will then be used to test the effectiveness of a “rationality checklist” that encourages greater engagement of analytic thinking, by prompting people to evaluate and adopt alternative thinking strategies that could be brought to bear in assessing a target belief in light of the available evidence. Third, findings from completion of the first two objectives will be applied to more complex real-world beliefs and evidence-gathering processes, such as those used to evaluate the validity of a claim (e.g., that cellphone radiation is a health hazard) through an internet search for available evidence. The proposed research will contribute to emerging theories of cognition that distinguish reasoning processes that operate at the algorithmic (e.g., execution of learned rules) and reflective (e.g., epistemic regulation) levels. Findings from the proposed research could be applied to the development of more effective public communications, for example by government service organizations, that are better attuned to how people can arrive at evidence-inconsistent beliefs (e.g., that produce resistance to evidence-supported policies and programs).