Belief vs. Logic: An Experimental Study on the Effect of Epistemic Authority on Belief Bias

Abstract

Belief bias is a tendency of people to accept logical conclusions because they are believable and not because they are necessarily true. The aim of the present experimental study was to examine the effect of perceived epistemic authority on the occurrence of belief bias in deductive syllogistic reasoning. In addition, personal need for structure was expected to moderate this effect. A total of 404 participants were randomly assigned to five groups and presented with a scenario of two individuals discussing the topic of racism. Thereafter, they were presented a profile of one discussant in which the epistemic authority was manipulated. To measure belief bias, participants evaluated the validity of 12 syllogisms (six conflict and six non-conflict) that were constructed as the discussant’s argumentation. The effect of epistemic authority on belief bias was not shown to be significant and personal need for structure did not moderate this effect. Our findings suggest that, unlike informal reasoning, formal deductive reasoning may be protected from the possible negative effects of epistemic authority.