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Supporting and Hindering Effects on Rational Reasoning

A Slightly Unbalanced Survey

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Positive Learning in the Age of Information

Abstract

Rational reasoning is a core competence of human beings. We are often good at making rational inferences and coming to justified conclusions. However, sometimes people deviate from the norms of rationality. Here I report experimental findings from my group on five different topics: (1) how people reason with problems which are easy or difficult to visualize, (2) how people deal with problems for which more than one possible solution exists, (3) how the trustworthiness of the information sources affects mental reasoning processes, (4) how cognitive reasoning interacts with moral values, and (5) how highly emotional content affects rational reasoning. I close with some thoughts on the connection between rationality and learning and describe some implications for education, legal reasoning, computer science, and social media.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    Markus Knauff

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  1. Markus Knauff
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Correspondence to Markus Knauff .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftspädagogik, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia

  2. Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Gabriel Wittum

  3. German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Andreas Dengel

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Knauff, M. (2018). Supporting and Hindering Effects on Rational Reasoning. In: Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Wittum, G., Dengel, A. (eds) Positive Learning in the Age of Information. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19567-0_7

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