Reasoning and Autobiographical Memory for Personality
Abstract
Certain problems are ambiguous and allow deductive or inductive conclusions, for example, If you follow this diet then you lose weight. Ann did not lose weight. Why not? Conscientious individuals who are less open to experience should focus on possibilities consistent with the premises, and make a deduction: Ann did not follow this diet. But, those who are open to experience and not conscientious should go beyond these possibilities, and make an induction, for example, Ann gave up exercising. In an experiment, a group who recalled autobiographical episodes in which they were conscientious and not open to experience made more deductions than a group who recalled episodes in which they had the opposite characteristics. A control group made about equal proportions of deductions and inductions. These results were predicted by the theory that reasoners envisage possibilities, and can focus on those possibilities consistent with the premises or on possibilities outside the premises.
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