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Types Of

Reasoning

Aalisha Mohite MIT World Peace University MSc Clinical Psychology^1102220004

Reasoning processes extract new information from already established pieces of knowledge & so are useful in many areas of life. It is one of the best forms of controlled thinking consciously towards the solution of a problem. It is realistic in the sense that the solution which is sought is always in reference to the reality of the situation. As Sherman defined, “reasoning is a process of thinking during which the individual is aware of a problem and they identify, evaluate, and decide upon a solution”.

Introduction

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It is the ability to draw logical conclusions from known statements or evidence. Here one starts with an already known or established generalized statement and applies it to specific cases. For example, all human beings are mortal you are a human being, therefore , you are mortal.

Deductive

Reasoning

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Inductive

Reasoning

Inductive reasoning begins with observations that are specific and limited in scope and proceeds to a generalized conclusion that is likely, but not certain, in light of accumulated evidence. You could say that inductive reasoning moves It allows humans to create generalizations from the specific to the general. about people, events, and things in their environment.

In deductive tasks, people are required to determine what conclusions, if any, must follow when they are given statements that are assumed to be true. For example, if we take it as true that The conclusion is true only if the assumptions are themselves true & the argument is valid. S1 - ‘ All statistics lectures are extremely interesting ’ S2 - ‘Today’s 9 am lecture is a statistics lecture’, it must be true that ‘Today’s 9 am lecture is extremely interesting ’.

Deductive Reasoning

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Propositional logic is a set of rules devised by logicians which enable valid arguments to be developed. This form of logic concerns arguments consisting of sequences of simple statements linked by logical relations such as and, or, not and if … then. For example, S1 - ‘ If it’s Wednesday, then I eat fish’, and For most people it is obvious that ‘I eat fish’ follows. But if S2 is ‘I am not eating fish today’, many people find the conclusion S2 - ‘It’s Wednesday’, what follows? ‘It’s not Wednesday’ harder to draw. Propositional Reasoning Deductive Reasoning

A considerable research effort has gone into looking at how people

handle propositional reasoning tasks and the extent to which human

reasoning matches propositional logic or not.

Logicians have developed inference rules that can be used to derive

correct conclusions from patterns of propositions , such that

different patterns trigger different inference rules.

Inference rules are rules for reaching a conclusion given a

particular pattern of propositions.

Deductive Reasoning - Propositional reasoning Inference rules

Syllogistic reasoning To determine what conclusion , if any, follows from assumptions about category membership. Syllogisms have been frequently used in laboratory studies of reasoning. In simple words, we have to determine what conclusion, if any, follows from assumptions about categories of things (golden retrievers, dogs) and properties ( having whiskers). Since the conclusion definitely follows necessarily from the premises this is a valid syllogistic argument that leads to a true conclusion. All dogs have whiskers All golden retrievers are dogs Therefore, all golden retrievers have whiskers. Deductive Reasoning

In this case the conclusion does not follow from the (true) premises and this form of argument is invalid. They may be varied by changing the quantifiers (‘some’, ‘all’) used in the argument; Clearly, many features of the task can be readily manipulated and a number of variations are also possible in the response requirements. Participants can be asked to generate valid inferences from given premises ; All cats are mammals All dogs are mammals Therefore, all dogs are cats. the terms may be abstract or concrete ; the premises and conclusion may be negative or affirmative ; the propositions in the argument may be empirically true or false. to judge a possible conclusion as valid or not; or to select a valid conclusion from a list of alternatives. Deductive Reasoning - Syllogistic reasoning

In Hypothesis Testing , people are required to determine the implications, if any, of some particular observation (s) for the truth of possible hypotheses. For example, if we hypothesized that Note that in this form of reasoning we cannot conclusively prove the hypothesis true , as no matter how many guard dogs are examined in Scotland, a new one might come along that is under 30 kgs. On the other hand the hypothesis could be shown to be false if a single guard dog weighing less than 30 kgs was discovered. ‘All guard dogs in Scotland weigh over 30 kgs’, then observations of guard dogs, their weights and geographical locations would bear on the hypothesis just given about guard dogs in Scotland. Inductive Reasoning

In Hypothesis Generation , the person can obtain observations on the objects of interest & seek to make a generalization supported by the evidence. Such hypotheses may need further testing and again cannot be conclusively proved but could be disproved. And in Hypothetico-Deductive Method a hypothesis is tested by deducing necessary consequences of the hypothesis and determining whether the consequences are true (supporting the hypothesis) or false (disconfirming or falsifying the hypothesis). If the implications of the hypothesis turn out to be true , then the hypothesis is supported , otherwise it can be rejected on the grounds that if validly drawn inferences from the hypothesis lead to empirically false conclusions then the hypothesis must be false. Inductive Reasoning

The Four Card Selection Task The key to this task is you need to understand that you must try to falsify the rule and not confirm it. The only way to falsify an "if p, then q" statement ("if vowel, then even number") is by finding an instance of "p and not q" (vowel and odd number). D and 4 are irrelevant , because these cards cannot combine a vowel and odd number that is since whatever is on their other sides would be consistent with proposed rule. The cards showing ‘A’ and ‘7’ should be examined because they could falsify the rule.

Explanation When Wason and his colleague Johnson-Laird put this type of question to 128 university students, they found that "A and 4" was the most common response. In other words, students chose the cards capable of confirming the statement rather than disconfirming it. This tendency to seek out confirming evidence is known as a "confirmation bias." The logic of seeking falsifying evidence was stressed by the influential philosopher of science, Karl Popper (1959). Popper’s views were the underlying inspiration behind Wason’s four-card task – which can seem rather an arbitrary and highly artificial exercise in logic but is actually rooted in thinking about the very practical question of how science should be done.

The Four Card Selection Task Beer (^) Water 25 16 Water 25 16 Beer 25 16 The only way to falsify an "if p, then q" statement ("if alcoholic drink, then over 18") is by finding an instance of "p and not q" (alcoholic drink and under 18). Water and 16 are irrelevant , because these cards cannot combine an alcoholic drink and under 18 that is since whatever is on their other sides would be consistent with proposed rule. The cards showing ‘Beer’ and ‘16’ should be examined because they could falsify the rule.

Beer 25 16 P not P Q not Q Water (^16)