Advancing theorizing about fast-and-slow thinking

Abstract

Human reasoning is often conceived as an interplay between a more intuitive and deliberate thought process. In the last 50 years, influential fast-and-slow dual process models that capitalize on this distinction have been used to account for numerous phenomena—from logical reasoning biases, over prosocial behavior, to moral decision-making. The present paper clarifies that despite the popularity, critical assumptions are poorly conceived. My critique focuses on two interconnected foundational issues: the exclusivity and switch feature. The exclusivity feature refers to the tendency to conceive intuition and deliberation as generating unique responses such that one type of response is assumed to be beyond the capability of the fast-intuitive processing mode. I review the empirical evidence in key fields and show that there is no solid ground for such exclusivity. The switch feature concerns the mechanism by which a reasoner can decide to shift between more intuitive and deliberate processing. I present an overview of leading switch accounts and show that they are conceptually problematic—precisely because they presuppose exclusivity. I build on these insights to sketch the groundwork for a more viable dual process architecture and illustrate how it can set a new research agenda to advance the field in the coming years.

Actively Open-Minded Thinking and Its Measurement

“…In this paper, we will focus on the links between AOT and performance on heuristics and biases tasks from the reasoning literature, because that is where the bulk of our empirical offers have been directed. Recently, however, there has been a burgeoning literature (e.g., Ackerman and Thompson 2017 ; De Neys 2023 ) examining the meta-reasoning processes that are implicated when solving these types of reasoning tasks. Although we have not investigated connections between AOT and these meta-reasoning processes, there would seem to be a good deal of conceptual overlap.…”

“…The instructions purposefully do not tell the subject how to weight the conflicting cues—the similarity of the description (“deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations”) to the classification (“feminist bank teller”) and the subset/superset relationship between feminist bank teller and bank teller. Most subjects detect the two conflicting cues in the problem ( De Neys 2014 , 2023 ), but the instructions pragmatically obscure the fact that the correct weighting of the cues is 0/100.…”

“…Heuristics and biases tasks, as discussed above, often involve a conflict between a classically normative response and a classically nonnormative one 6 . De Neys ( 2014 , 2023 ) has shown that in many cases the conflict between the two responses is detected at some cognitive level. The detected conflict might broach awareness to a sufficient degree that tendencies toward detachment can be helpful.…”

“… 4 Our characterization of heuristics and biases tasks as implicating decoupling holds only for those instances where the task truly does create a hostile environment (see Stanovich 2018 ) for a particular subject because the normative response has not been practiced to automaticity. In cases where the normative response has been practiced to an automaticity so great that it dominates the intuitive response, there is no response conflict and cognitive decoupling is not required (see De Neys 2023 ; Thompson et al 2018 ). …”

The development of cognitive reflection

“…Finally, research on children's cognitive reflection should interface with recent results and proposals regarding dual process theory (De Neys, 2022). In particular, recent evidence suggests that many individuals who provide correct answers on CRT problems do so without need for reflection; their intuitive response is the correct response (Bago & De Neys, 2019;Raoelison et al, 2020).…”