Similarity and cooperation received as determinants of cooperation renderedS's perception of high similarity between himself and a fictitious P produced high cooperation and high expectation of cooperation by P. A similar P's ostensible competitive behavior produced retaliation, and a dissimilar or control P's cooperation produced some exploitation. Cooperation by a similar P, and competition by dissimilar or control Ps led to no changes in S's previous strategy.
Ss asse ssed the validity of syllogisms varying in affective loading, quantification, and validity. Syllogisms with existential conclusions resulted in more errors than syllogisms with universal conclusions, and more invalid syllogisms were incorrectly accepted than were valid ones incorrectly rejected. This difference was greatest for existential arguments with positive affect.Common observation and empirical research indicate that individuals are often at fault in their reasoning. A classical study by Woodworth & Sells (1935) illustrated an "atmosphere" effect in logical reasoning. in which a "global feeling" or "impression" created by the types of premises used in a syllogism influenced the kinds of conclusions drawn. They also showed difficulty in reasoning caused by ambiguity in the language. (For instance, the word "some" means "at least one and perhaps all" in logical terms. whereas in every day parlance it is more often taken to mean "more than two but not all.") Finally, they report a "caution" or "wariness" effect in which the individual is more likely to accept a particular conclusion than a universal one.Other research has shown that attitudes affect the reasoning process. Studies by Lefford (1946). Janis & Frick (1943). andFeather (1964) showed that the distortion of reasoning is greater for syllogisms containing emotional subject matter. or is greater for syllogisms in which the conclusion has previously been accepted.However. existing studies still contain some ambiguities: (1) Some studies (Janis & Frick. 1943;Thouless. 1959) did not employ "neutral" statements but only those in which S was emotionally involved. and this failed to control for "atmospheric" effects such as those found by Woodworth & Sells (1935).(2) Some studies (Lefford, 1946;Thistlewaite. 1950; Morgan & Morton, 1~H; did not include negatively affective statements with which Ss are likely to disagree, and thus failed to control for acquiescence. (3) Most pertinent studies failed to consider Woodworth & Sells' (1935) "caution effects." If present, they would lead to greater errors in existential statements ("some x are y") than in universal ones ("all x are y") if the conclusion is invalid. Conversely, the same wariness would lessen the acceptance of valid conclusions drawn from universal statements. (4) The previous experiments dealing with the effect of attitudes about conclusions on syllogistic reasoning tested S's attitudes towards these conclusions before Psychon. Sci.. 1967. Vol. 7 (10)
HARRY KAUFMANNl AND STEPHEN GOLDSTEIN
UNII'ERSITY OF TORONTOor after the syllogism test. It is possible that these methods might have led to commitment for the second task. Thus, the opinions expressed could affect the subsequent evaluation of the syllogism, or a conclusion correctly or incorrectly derived from a syllogism might crystallize into an opinion.The present experiment attempts to control for the possible confounding effects listed above.The following hypotheses were tested: Hypothesis 1:SyllOgisms with both positively affective (...
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