How do People Reason?

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Dear All,

I am presently a PhD Clinical Psychology student based at the University of Bath. I am presently under the supervision of Dr Mark Brosnan and Dr Chris Ashwin. I am actively pursuing research in how people with various psychopathologies reason in both social and experimental settings. I am primarily interested in how dual process accounts of human cognition map on to both models of Autism and Psychosis (Humour me for a second!).

As individuals, we sometimes reason intuitively, we automatically rely on our gut instinct and just respond as we "feel". This intuitiveness is sometimes influenced by an array of factors such as time, emotion, level of stress etc. On other occasions, we reason more 'logically', sometimes we take a second to gather our thoughts and respond more deliberately and to a degree, more logically. All of us are prone to reasoning biases, errors and fallacies. However, individuals who display a high amount of 'psychotic-like traits' may reason intuitively to the point that they erroneously jump to conclusions, which effectively may fuel delusional ideation, paranoid thoughts etc. On the other side of the coin (according to some theorists, Autistic Spectrum Conditions are diametric to Psychotic Spectrum Conditions) people with autistic conditions are less influenced by their emotions and other characteristics that may contribute to intuitiveness and generally spend longer making decisions, consequently, in some cases, they respond more logically to an assortment of experimental and social reasoning tasks. However, there isn't enough published research out there yet to warrant this claim.

I am currently seeking participants to complete an online study. The online study consists of a selection of questionnaires (95% multiple choice), a battery of reasoning tasks (multiple choice) and finally a battery of deductive and inductive reasoning tasks. I would be most grateful if you could please participate in the research. We hope to be able to broaden our understanding of how underlying reasoning mechanisms map onto autistic and psychotic-based traits. This may evidently lead to more efficient screening tools for both autism and psychosis e.g. if an individual exhibits a high degree of psychosis-traits and persistently display a high level of intuitive reasoning, does that make them for susceptible to delusional ideation? Alternatively, individuals who exhibit a high degree of autistic traits and reason in a very rigorous way, does that make it more difficult for them to 'mentalise' on a daily basis?

The study does take about 45 minutes, which I know is quite long! However, this will be the first of many studies, subsequent studies will include participants receiving an electronic Amazon Voucher (£10) upon successful completion.

You participation will be greatly appreciated.

The study has received full ethical approval from the Psychology Ethics Committee at the University of Bath.

Ethics Reference: 13-192

Study Link: xxx.survey.bath.ac.uk/project02

The link doesn't work (even if copy-pasted). Replacing the 'xxx' with 'www' leads to a survey for the general population which I assume is not the one you want us to make.

In addition to that I think the language you use here is too complicated. Simpler words would make it more accessible. Even not counting that I'm having a hard time believing you could get around the sampling bias introduced by making it an online survey posted on a forum, but you're the Phd student and I haven't seen the survey yet. I'll take it when there's a working link.

EDIT

After a quick peek into the survey for the general population I think that's the one we should make, this is the fixed link: www.survey.bath.ac.uk/project02

Is this a survey for UK citizens only? The question about education level is hard to answer for those of us who didn't go through the UK school system.

Hi Threore,

Thank you for taking the time to complete the study and post your feedback.

Yes - It is the General Population one, we presently have several of these 'online studies' taking place simultaneously. Our aim is to recruit people within the General Population who may and may not have some form of psychological \ neurodevelopmental disorder. We commit to the idea of a continuum, where we all exhibit various traits and features of both psychosis based conditions and autism, however the intensity and degree of such traits will vary considerably from one individual to the next.

Thank you for your comments about the wording of the questions \ instructions, I shall raise this with my supervisors and see if we can come up with more suitable \ straight forward language.

Anyone can take part in this particular study, but my apologies about the academic cultural clash, its not something we really considered, as most of the research takes place across various University across the UK. Again, this is something that needs to be integrated for subsequent studies.

Finally, yes I imagine many individuals who respond via this link will most likely have some form of Autistic condition or Mental Health condition. Consequently, this would result in a selection bias. However, we are not just depending on this specific forum to recruit people, we are relying on multiple designs across various websites \ lab based studies that tap into a range of different population samples. Interestingly though, there is much debate \ dispute as to whether individuals who complete online studies \ surveys respond differently in contrast to Lab Based and more conventional designs. The research has suggested that results of traditional studies produce similar \ identical results when modified to an online delivery design. However, the counter argument is that the researchers will not be able to know what conditions participants who complete online studies are in e.g. are they listening to loud music, is someone telling them the answers, are they under the influence of drugs or alcohol etc. Therefore, it is always advantageous and methodologically sound to use both online and lab based studies.

Thanks again Threore for your input. Much appreciated.

Thanks to everyone who has completed the study so far.

Cheers

Hi All,

I just want to re-iterate to everyone who perhaps has not properly read or simply mis-interpreted what I have said in my original post.

NO Amazon Voucher will be awarded for completion of this study. Prospective studies (That I plan to advertise in February) WILL include an Amazon voucher, as it will probably be about 55 minutes in length and will be specifically aiming at recruiting participants who have a specific mental health diagnosis.


Cheers