Everyday Consequences of Analytic Thinking
Pennycook, G., Fugelsang, J.A., & Koehler, D.J. (2015). Everyday consequences of analytic thinking. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 425-443. DOI: 10.1177/0963721415604610
23 Pages Posted: 24 Aug 2015 Last revised: 29 Mar 2019
Date Written: August 14, 2015
Abstract
We review recent evidence revealing that the mere willingness to engage analytic reasoning as a means to override intuitive “gut feelings” is a meaningful predictor of key psychological outcomes in diverse areas of everyday life. For example, those with a more analytic thinking style are more skeptical about religious, paranormal, and conspiratorial concepts. In addition, analytic thinking relates to having less traditional moral values, making less emotional or disgust-based moral judgments, and being less cooperative and more rationally self-interested in social dilemmas. Analytic thinkers are even less likely to offload thinking to smartphone technology and may be more creative. Taken together, these results indicate that the propensity to think analytically has major consequences for individual psychology.
Keywords: Analytic thinking; reasoning; cognitive style; religion; morality
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