The effects of graduate training on reasoning: Formal discipline and thinking about everyday-life events.
Open accessAbstract
ABSTRACT. " The theory of formal disciplinenthat is, the view that instruction in abstract rule systems can affect reasoning about everyday-life eventsnhas been rejected by 20th century psychologists on the basis of rather scant evidence. We examined the effects of graduate training in law, medicine, psychology, and chemistry on statistical reasoning, methodological reasoning aboutconfounded variables, and reasoning about problems in the logic of the conditional Both psychology and medical training produced large effects on statistical and methodological reasoning, and psychology, medical, and law training pro-duced effects on ability to reason about problems in the logic of the conditional Chemistry training had no effect on any type of reasoning studied. These results eem well understood in terms of the rule systems taught by the
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
There is evidence that domain-general knowledge can be taught in such a way that it does transfer to new situations.
“Although transfer of knowledge is notoriously difficult to achieve through instruction, there is evidence that such domain-general knowledge can be taught in such a way that it does transfer to new situations (Bassok & Holyoak, 1989;Fong, Krantz, & Nisbett, 1986;Lehman, Lempert, & Nisbett, 1988;Nisbett, Fong, Lehman, & Cheng, 1987).”
From The role of anomalous data in knowledge acquisition: A theoretical framework and implications for science instruction. (1993) · cites this paper as Lehman, Lempert, & Nisbett, 1988
Lehman et al. (1988) found that graduate training in psychology and in medicine greatly improved graduate students' performance on everyday reasoning tasks involving experimentation and statistics.
“Moreover, Lehman et al. (1988) found that graduate training in psychology and in medicine greatly improved graduate students' performance on everyday reasoning tasks involving experimentation and statistics.”
From The role of anomalous data in knowledge acquisition: A theoretical framework and implications for science instruction. (1993) · cites this paper as Lehman et al. (1988)
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
The growth of logical thinking: From childhood to adolescence.
Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1958) · Basic Books · doi:10.1037/10034-000 · Cited by 4,607 · see citing works
The processes of causal attribution.
Kelley, H. H. (1973) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/h0034225 · Cited by 4,025 · see citing works
Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior
JONES, E. E. (1987) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 3,775 · see citing works
Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery
Holland, J. H., Holyoak, K. J., Nisbett, R. E., Thagard, P. R., & Smoliar, S. W. (1987) · IEEE Expert · doi:10.1109/mex.1987.4307100 · Cited by 2,305 · see citing works
Self-citationLife-Span Development and Behavior
Baltes, P. B., Featherman, D. L., Lerner, R. M., Brim, O. G., & Perlmutter, M. C. (1984) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 1,805 · see citing works
Cheng, P. W., & Holyoak, K. J. (1985) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(85)90014-3 · Cited by 1,463 · see citing works
Foss, B. (1966) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 1,157 · see citing works
Causal schemata and the attribution process
Kelley, H. H. (1972) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 1,048 · see citing works
The elusive thematic‐materials effect in Wason's selection task
Griggs, R. A., & Cox, J. R. (1982) · British Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1982.tb01823.x · Cited by 859 · see citing works
The use of statistical heuristics in everyday inductive reasoning.
Nisbett, R. E., Krantz, D. H., Jepson, C., & Kunda, Z. (1983) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.90.4.339 · Cited by 826 · see citing works
Self-citationPiaget, J. (1958) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 618 · see citing works
The effects of statistical training on thinking about everyday problems
Fong, G. T., Krantz, D. H., & Nisbett, R. E. (1986) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(86)90001-0 · Cited by 597 · see citing works
Self-citationPragmatic versus syntactic approaches to training deductive reasoning
Cheng, P. W., Holyoak, K. J., Nisbett, R. E., & Oliver, L. M. (1986) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(86)90002-2 · Cited by 488 · see citing works
Self-citationNickerson, R. S., Perkins, D. N., & Smith, E. E. (2014) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315792538 · Cited by 447 · see citing works
The role of analogy in transfer between similar problem states
Reed, S. K., Ernst, G. W., & Banerji, R. (1974) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(74)90020-6 · Cited by 400 · see citing works
Facilitation of reasoning by realism: Effect or non‐effect?
Manktelow, K. I., & Evans, J. S. B. T. (1979) · British Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1979.tb01720.x · Cited by 358 · see citing works
Jowett, B. (2014) · Cited by 324 · see citing works
Hernstein, R. J., Nickerson, R. S., de Sánchez, M. D., & Swets, J. (1986) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.41.11.1279 · Cited by 266 · see citing works
Usefulness of analogous solutions for solving algebra word problems.
Reed, S. K., Dempster, A., & Ettinger, M. (1985) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition · doi:10.1037/0278-7393.11.1.106 · Cited by 224 · see citing works
Inductive reasoning: Competence or skill?
Jepson, C., Krantz, D. H., & Nisbett, R. E. (1983) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x00017180 · Cited by 167 · see citing works
Self-citationThorndike, E. L. (1925) · Teachers College, Columbia University eBooks · Cited by 165 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- D'Andrade, R. (1982). Paper presented at the Symposium on the Ecology of Cognition: Biological, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives, Greensboro, NC.
- Hayes, J. R., & Simon, H. A. (1977). Psychological differences among problem isomorphs. In N. J. Castellan, Jr., D. B. Pisoni, & G. R. Potts (Eds.), Cognitive theory (pp. 21-41). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
When and where do we apply what we learn?: A taxonomy for far transfer
Barnett, S. M., & Ceci, S. J. (2002) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.4.612 · Cited by 2,076 · see citing works
Chinn, C. A., & Brewer, W. F. (1993) · Review of Educational Research · doi:10.3102/00346543063001001 · Cited by 1,393 · see citing works
Do “brain-training” programs work?
Simons, D. J., Boot, W. R., Charness, N., Gathercole, S. E., Chabris, C. F., Hambrick, D. Z., & Stine-Morrow, E. A. L. (2016) · Psychological Science in the Public Interest · doi:10.1177/1529100616661983 · Cited by 1,183 · see citing works
Mental contamination and mental correction: Unwanted influences on judgments and evaluations.
Wilson, T. D., & Brekke, N. (1994) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.116.1.117 · Cited by 1,157 · see citing works
Are Cognitive Skills Context-Bound?
PERKINS, D., & SALOMON, G. (1989) · Educational Researcher · doi:10.3102/0013189x018001016 · Cited by 1,133 · see citing works
The Cognitive Reflection Test as a predictor of performance on heuristics-and-biases tasks
Toplak, M. E., West, R. F., & Stanovich, K. E. (2011) · Memory & Cognition · doi:10.3758/s13421-011-0104-1 · Cited by 1,047 · see citing works
Children and adults as intuitive scientists.
Kuhn, D. (1989) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.96.4.674 · Cited by 774 · see citing works
West, R. F., Toplak, M. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (2008) · Journal of Educational Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0012842 · Cited by 416 · see citing works
Measuring psychological uncertainty: Verbal versus numeric methods.
Windschitl, P. D., & Wells, G. L. (1996) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied · doi:10.1037/1076-898x.2.4.343 · Cited by 326 · see citing works
Training versus engagement as paths to cognitive enrichment with aging.
Stine-Morrow, E. A. L., Payne, B. R., Roberts, B. W., Kramer, A. F., Morrow, D. G., Payne, L., Hill, P. L., Jackson, J. J., Gao, X., Noh, S. R., et al. (2014) · Psychology and Aging · doi:10.1037/a0038244 · Cited by 109 · see citing works
The reasoning skills and thinking dispositions of problem gamblers: a dual‐process taxonomy
Toplak, M. E., Liu, E., Macpherson, R., Toneatto, T., & Stanovich, K. E. (2007) · Journal of Behavioral Decision Making · doi:10.1002/bdm.544 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
Chang, W., Chen, E., Mellers, B., & Tetlock, P. (2016) · Judgment and Decision Making · doi:10.1017/s1930297500004599 · Cited by 89 · see citing works
“Longer-term educational programs, such as undergraduate-level statistical training have also improved probabilistic reasoning (Fong et al., 1986; Lehman et al., 1988; Lehman & Nisbett, 1990; 1 Returning to the Iraq WMD example, nowhere in the intelligence community’s assessments of the probability…”
An encounter frequency account of how experience affects likelihood estimation
Obrecht, N. A., Chapman, G. B., & Gelman, R. (2009) · Memory & Cognition · doi:10.3758/mc.37.5.632 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lehman, D. R., Lempert, R. O., & Nisbett, R. E.
- Affiliations
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Venue
- American Psychologist
- Published
- 1988-06
- Volume
- 43
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 431-442
- ISSN
- 0003-066X (ISSN-L)
- 1935-990X
- OpenAlex
- W2044683535
- Cited by
- 341
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 66.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- American Psychologist (publishedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Education and Critical Thinking Development
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistics Education and Methodologies
- Keywords
- formal discipline, graduate education, reasoning, statistical reasoning, conditional logic, rule systems, medical training, psychology education
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
