Originally published by Rita Handrich.
Researchers in France wanted to know if non-reflective thinkers (those who trust their initial intuition) would be more likely than reflective thinkers (those who use analytic reasoning to question their initial intuition) to believe an unusual or uncanny experience was the result of some supernatural explanation such as astrology or extra-sensory perception. They conducted three separate experiments to see if participants who appeared to have their minds read “through telepathy” by a fellow participant would see the experience differently based on whether they were reflective or non-reflective in their personal style.
Of course, you have likely already guessed that the “fellow participant” was not a participant at all but rather what researchers call a “confederate” who was able to “read” the actual participant’s mind and identify the cards the participant chose at random. (In truth, the experimenter could see the cards chosen and the confederate was cued about which card it was by the language the experimenter used to tell the confederate to focus on the “image” of the card the participant was “telepathically sending” to the confederate.) So the participant (either a reflective or a non-reflective thinker) was incredibly able to telepathically send the images of the cards to the confederate. And guess what? When asked how they explained their heightened ability to telepathically communicate, the reflective and non-reflective thinkers had varying explanations.
The reflective (analytical) thinkers thought it was a fluke and the non-reflective thinkers thought they were fabulous telepathic communicators.
The researchers comment that it is traditional to avoid implying one style of thinking (reflective versus non-reflective) is better than the other. When it comes to gullibility, these researchers clearly see reflective thinking as better than non reflective thinking.
“We showed that a single uncanny experience may be enough for non-reflective thinkers to seriously consider the possibility of supernatural causation. This makes them especially vulnerable to scammers who attempt to leverage paranormal beliefs into profits. A common trick, for example, consists of pretending to detect a paranormal ability in an individual, only to offer him or her an expensive training aimed at developing this potential. Individuals with a predominantly non-reflective cognitive style should be well warned against their own reaction to such and other encounters with the supernatural.”
From a litigation advocacy perspective, it makes sense that those who tend to be non-reflective (likely also known as being low in “need for cognition”) would be less likely to analyze or question your unusual conclusions since doing that takes a lot of mental energy. Need for cognition and those who are more cognitively (rather than emotionally) driven has been an area of interest in jury selection for years. You likely recall that old voir dire question that has been updated a bit recently from “Do you enjoy crossword puzzles?” to questions like “Do you enjoy Sudoku?” or “Do you enjoy solving complex problems?”. That question is meant to assess whether the potential jurors’ need for cognition is high or low—or, as these researchers label it, reflective versus non-reflective thinking. So who is easiest to persuade or influence? These researchers would say it is the non-reflective thinker. The question then becomes whether they are more likely to seize on your trial story to drive that rush to judgement, or the version offered by the opposition. A topic for several dozen other blog posts…
Bouvet R, & Bonnefon JF (2015). Non-Reflective Thinkers Are Predisposed to Attribute Supernatural Causation to Uncanny Experiences. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin PMID: 25948700
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