Three decades of lay epistemics: The why, how, and who of knowledge formation

Abstract

A conceptual integration and review are presented of three separate research programmes informed by the theory of lay epistemics (Kruglanski, 1989). They respectively address the owhyo, ohowo, and owhoo questions about human knowledge formation. The owhyo question is treated in work on the need for cognitive closure that propels epistemic behaviour and affects individual, interpersonal, and group phenomena. The ohowo question is addressed in work on the unimodel (Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, Erb, Chun, 2007) depicting the process of drawing conclusions from the oinformation giveno. The owhoo question is addressed in work on oepistemic authorityo highlighting the centrality of source effects (including oneself as a source) in human epistemic behaviour. These separate research paradigms explore facets of epistemic behaviour that jointly produce human knowledge, of essential significance to people's' individual and social functioning

When the need for closure promotes complex cognition

“…derived from his early writings, similar definitions and objections can be found in the author's much later works (e.g., Kruglanski, 2004;Kruglanski, Dechesne, Orehek, & Pierro, 2009;Roets, Kruglanski, Kossowska, Pierro, & Hong, 2015). This proves that the possibility of motivation to avoid closure is a consistently formulated theoretical postulate.…”

“…As evidenced by the summarized results, although in most cases the need for closure speeds up and simplifies the process of formulating knowledge (review: Kruglanski et al, 2009), situations in which individuals characterized by a strong motivation to achieve closure are ready to make extra cognitive effort in order to formulate a credible answer to a persistent question are not only possible in theory but also observable in practice. The above results are derived from a wide variety of studies, their topics extend over subjects such as abstract problems (Jaśko et al, 2015), consumer decisions (Houghton & Grewal, 2000), and actual behavior in a social context (Kosic et al, 2004).…”

When cognition turns vicious: Heuristics and biases in light of virtue epistemology

“…Most people are quite good at the task of evaluating the best argument, both at the individual and group level, when motivated to do so. When held accountable under a time pressure, however, people exhibit the primacy effect, giving more weight to information they received first (Kruglanski, et al, 2009). …”

“…Furthermore, we are susceptible to all sorts of biases that make knowing difficult. For example, we tend to favor evidence or data received early in our inquiries (Kruglanski, Dechesne, Orehek, & Pierro, 2009) and we tend to discount the weight of evidence that counts against hypotheses we endorse (Nickerson, 1998). Second, evolutionary psychologists have offered some intriguing arguments that these dispositions are embedded within our cognitive architecture in ways that can systematically lead us to biased thinking, in some cases for adaptive reasons (Mercier & Sperber, 2011).…”

Examination of Psychometric Properties of the Need for Closure Scale- Short Form among Turkish College Students

“…The need for completion is theoretically continuous and focuses on the diagnostic knowledge and stereotypical judgment rather than the prototype to trigger decreased processing of knowledge and increasing judicial confidence, as well as increasing identification (1). In addition, the need for closure is associated with time pressure, physical discomfort, or situations in which a clear decision is needed and with many psychosocial variables (21). For example, it was found that individuals with low need for closure had flexible thinking, took longer to decide, and had greater tolerance for ambiguity (8,22).…”