Changing your mind

• Published in: Memory & cognition Vol. 37; no. 5; pp. 624 - 631
• Main Authors: Walsh, Clare R., Johnson-Laird, P. N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer-Verlag 01.07.2009; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Artificial intelligence; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Carbon dioxide; Changes; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive Psychology; Conflict (Psychology); Credibility; Decision Making; Experiments; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Generalization (Psychology); Humans; Hypotheses; Judgment; Logic; Probability Learning; Problem Solving; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reasoning. Problem solving; Uncertainty; Belief Revision; Wilcoxon Test; Explanatory Hypothesis; Minimal Change; Good Supply; Cognition; Change; Experimental study; Conflict; Reasoning
• ISSN: 0090-502X; 1532-5946
• DOI: 10.3758/MC.37.5.624

When individuals detect an inconsistency in a set of propositions, they tend to change their minds about at least one proposition to resolve the inconsistency. The orthodox view from William James (1907) onward has been that a rational change should be minimal . We propose an alternative hypothesis according to which individuals seek to resolve inconsistencies by explaining their origins. We report four experiments corroborating the explanatory hypothesis. Experiment 1 showed that participants’ explanations revised general conditional claims rather than specific categorical propositions. Experiment 2 showed that, when explanations did revise the categorical proposition, participants also tended to deny the consequences of a second generalization. Experiment 3 showed that this tendency persists when participants previously affirmed these consequences explicitly. Experiment 4 showed that, when participants could easily explain an inconsistency by revising a generalization, they were more likely to accept the consequences of a second generalization. All four results contravene minimalism but support the explanatory hypothesis.