The Cognitive Reflection Test is robust to multiple exposures
Year: 2017
Type: preprint
Abstract: The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is a widely used measure of the propensity to engage in analytic or deliberative reasoning in lieu of gut feelings or intuitions. CRT problems are unique because they reliably cue intuitive but incorrect responses and, therefore, appear simple among those who do poorly. By virtue of being comprised of so-called “trick-problems” that, in theory, could be discovered as such, it is commonly held that the predictive validity of the CRT is undermined by prior experience with the task. Indeed, recent studies show that people who have previous experience with the CRT score higher on the test. Naturally, however, it is not obvious that this actually undermines the predictive validity of the test. Across six studies with ~2500 participants and seventeen variables of interest (e.g., religious belief, bullshit receptivity, smartphone usage, susceptibility to heuristics and biases, numeracy), we did not find a single case where the predictive power of the CRT was significantly undermined by repeated exposure. This was despite the fact that we replicated the previously reported increase in accuracy among individuals who report previous experience with the CRT. We speculate that the CRT remains robust after multiple exposures because less reflective (more intuitive) individuals fail to realize that being presented with apparently easy problems more than once confers information about the tasks’ actual difficulty.
Authors: Michal Bialek, Gordon Pennycook
Institutions: Kozminski University, Yale University
Language: English
Subfield: General Decision Sciences
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4241433386