A two-step normative framework for rationality assessment

The last section has been aimed at giving an overview of the factors which influence and determine any reasoning performance. In accordance with the picture given, I would like to provide a two-step normative framework that is applicable to both subjects’ task interpretations and responses. In the vast majority of reasoning studies, it has been taken for granted that the selection of a normative standard for the assessment of a subjects’

reasoning performance is completely distinguished from the question of the subjects’

interpretations of the reasoning task. Thus, subjects’ response accuracy has been regarded

5 As is said by Evans and Over (1996: 9), “people are usually aware of a goal they have and may have some awareness of some of the steps required to attain it. But they are usually unaware and unable to describe the processes that do much to help them to achieve their goals”.

as the only object of evaluation in rationality assessment. On this view, rationality and reasoning have nothing to do with subjects’ understanding of the task and their search for relevant information, which have been regarded as mere cognitive variables. As seen in the previous chapters, reasoning performances have been assessed in terms of one’s ability either to comply with a set of normative principles (in the case of deontological approaches) or to reach a specific range of goals efficiently (in the case of consequentialist approaches). However, as suggested in the previous section, no normative claim about specific pieces of reasoning should be made without previously examining how subjects have framed the reasoning problem and what background assumptions they have made.

Subjects may have different possible “understandings” of the problem context and the one they select influences how they approach the reasoning problem and what answers are the

“correct” ones to give. As well as subjects’ responses to tasks, it seems to me that subjects’

task interpretations require a normative background against which to be assessed as to appropriateness or legitimacy. Otherwise, not only one but many normatively appropriate answers to a reasoning problem are possible and which one should be selected depends upon what the reasoners’ understanding of the problem is. Any response should be regarded as normatively appropriate directly following from the subjects’ representation of the problem and its context. By assuming such a view, however, rationality assessments become so flexible that whatever subjects do, they may always be regarded as rational.

What is needed is half-way between classical approaches to rationality assessment and relativistic ones. In my view, such a half-way approach involves a two-step normative framework for situationally establishing the legitimacy of subjects’ task interpretations and the normative appropriateness of their responses (for a similar analysis see Todorov 1997).

This approach specifies two kinds of constraints that operate within the experimental context. On the one side, the subjects’ understanding of the reasoning problem is always

constrained by the information explicitly presented in the experimental situation. On the other side, as is held by consequentialists, the evaluation of success in reasoning cannot be separated from the evaluation of success in achieving goals. Let me explain these two points.

On the “understanding” side, before all, we need examine the presentation of the problem, which strongly influences the subjects’ understanding of it. When an individual is about to engage in some activity, such as performing a task, there is an objective situation that determines the type and quality of information actually available. For an experimenter, the first step is to engage in a descriptive exploration of the range of interpretations that the reasoning problem admits and their context-dependence. Otherwise, there is a risk that experimenters misconceive the subjects’ reasoning performances. Consider two examples.

With regard to the Wason selection task, the semantics of conditionals suggests that there is more than one possible interpretation for statements such as those which Wason used in the selection task, envisaging the conditional as representing different conditional relations (Stenning & van Lambalgen 2001; 2004). Over the years, several of these interpretations have been adopted in order to explain subjects’ selections. The question is how to decide which interpretations may legitimately apply to the reasoning problem as proposed by the experimenter. In the same vein, depending on the context, words such as “probability” and

“likely” may be interpreted in very different ways which do not strictly match their mathematical meaning.⁶ In the case of the Linda Problem, Jonathan Adler (1991: 261) has demonstrated that different meanings of probability may “all legitimately apply to the problem as posed, and the evidence does not decisively show one of these to be uniquely applicable”. More generally, as shown by proponents of the conversational approach, subjects do not usually have an explicit and complete grasp of the problem as intended by

6 Gerd Gigerenzer (1996: 593) has observed the word “probable” can mean, for example, “plausible”,

“having the appearance of truth” and “that which may in view of present evidence be reasonably expected to happen”.

the experimenter, but most of them certainly have an implicit grasp of what the problem is about and that allows them to construct, with suitable contextual support, a wide range of interpretations of it. If they do not find a set of clear cues or instructions, the subjects try to frame the problem in the light of their previous ordinary and common experience. Indeed, insofar as all what they need is to understand what kind of task they are faced with and to figure out what they have to do in that particular situation, the subjects tend always to interpret the task giving to it practical significance (usually strictly connected with their ordinary activities) (see, e.g., Stanovich 1999: 190-207). Regardless of how experimenters interpret a reasoning problem, if the subjects’ framing of the problem matches the contextual information available in the experimental situation, it should be regarded as a legitimate interpretation of that problem. Thus, the same problem may be framed in different ways on the condition that the resulting representation matches the contextual information as explicitly presented. For example, as we will see with respect to the selection task, when dealing with a reasoning problem, subjects usually make several background assumptions about how things actually are in the light of their previous experience so that the normatively appropriate response they draw can be due to their reliance on these assumptions rather than to the use of a particular reasoning strategy.

Generalizing from these considerations, I hold that the first set of constraints on rationality assessment comes from the experimental setting which delimits the range of frames which subjects may legitimately apply to a problem.

I turn now to the relativity of the normative framework. Depending on the goal-structure of any framings, in order to assess reasoning performances we should first ask what purpose reasoner’s answers are aimed at and then consider whether they are right or wrong, correct or incorrect with respect to it. What does the subject aim at, and what means will she use to achieve it effectively? Such questions call for a consequentialist approach.

People show their rationality also in achieving simple and basic goals in ordinary activities.

Contrary to the claims of evolutionary psychologists and pragmatists, I am not referring to the most important goals of one’s life, or to reproductive success. Indeed, our long-term goals do not always meet our short-term decisions, which are usually made within a specific situational context. Our general goal of good health may be in conflict with our preferences for fat foods and cigarettes. Goal-directed activities are as different and varied as the whole range of human activities. In an experimental setting, subjects may engage in an activity such as inferring conclusions, making predictions, judging the likelihood of a particular event, making decisions, testing hypotheses and so on. In doing so, subjects are not necessarily attempting to satisfy the experimenters’ expectations, but rather to solve the problem as they understand it. Thus, the correctness of a reasoning performance is determined in terms of its efficiency and effectiveness in attaining one’s goals. Indeed, it is an obvious fact that in any goal-oriented activity some ways of achieving goals are better than others.

To sum up, the two-step normative framework of the context-sensitive consequentialist approach states that the information explicitly presented in the experimental context places constraints on the goals and frames that it will be appropriate for the reasoner to activate when dealing with the task, which in turn determine the type of reasoning strategy that will be effective and efficient.