Synonyms
Definition
There are two major types of rationality, namely epistemic and instrumental rationality. These two forms of rationality refer to what is true and what to do, respectively.
Introduction
What is rationality? For thousands of years, scholars across academic disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, and economics, have debated the answer to this question. According to Aristotle, humans are rational animals because they have the capacity to base their behaviors on thought and reason. In essence, if one uses reason, then one is rational. This simple definition is appealing; it is readily comprehensible and aligns with humans’ intuitive sense of their thought processes.
Until the late twentieth century, scholars widely assumed that humans were rarely irrational, even in situations of uncertainty. This assumption formed the bedrock of most economic theories. Humans, according to these...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Croskerry, P. (2002). Achieving quality in clinical decision making: Cognitive strategies and detection of bias. Academic Emergency Medicine, 9, 1184–1204.
Crumlish, N., & Kelly, B. D. (2009). How psychiatrists think. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 15(1), 72–79.
Evans, J. S. B. (2014). Two minds rationality. Thinking & Reasoning, 20, 129–146.
Evans, J. S. B., & Stanovich, K. E. (2013). Dual-process theories of higher cognition: Advancing the debate. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 223–241.
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1994). Social cognition: From brains to culture. New York: Sage.
Frederick, S. (2005). Cognitive reflection and decision making. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19, 25–42.
Gigerenzer, G., & Goldstein, D. G. (1996). Reasoning the fast and frugal way: Models of bounded rationality. Psychological Review, 103, 650.
Haselton, M. G., & Buss, D. M. (2009). Error management theory and the evolution of misbeliefs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32, 522–523.
Hergovich, A., Schott, R., & Burger, C. (2010). Biased evaluation of abstracts depending on topic and conclusion: Further evidence of a confirmation bias within scientific psychology. Current Psychology, 29, 188–209.
Horn, J. L., & Cattell, R. B. (1967). Age differences in fluid and crystallized intelligence. Acta Psychologica, 26, 107–129.
Kahan, D. M., Landrum, A., Carpenter, K., Helft, L., & Hall Jamieson, K. (2017). Science curiosity and political information processing. Political Psychology, 38, 179–199.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kelly, T. (2003). Epistemic rationality as instrumental rationality: A critique. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 66, 612–640.
Keren, G., & Schul, Y. (2009). Two is not always better than one: A critical evaluation of two-system theories. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 533–550.
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480–498.
Leary, M. R., Diebels, K. J., Davisson, E. K., Jongman-Sereno, K. P., Isherwood, J. C., Raimi, K. T., Deffler, S. A., & Hoyle, R. H. (2017). Cognitive and interpersonal features of intellectual humility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 793–813.
Levitt, S. D., & List, J. A. (2008). Homo economicus evolves. Science, 319, 909–910.
Lilienfeld, S. O., Ammirati, R., & Landfield, K. (2009). Giving debiasing away: Can psychological research on correcting cognitive errors promote human welfare? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 390–398.
Manktelow, K. I. (2004). Reasoning and rationality: The pure and the practical. In Psychology of reasoning (pp. 167–188). London: Psychology Press.
Porter, T., & Schumann, K. (2018). Intellectual humility and openness to the opposing view. Self and Identity, 17, 139–162.
Pronin, E., Lin, D. Y., & Ross, L. (2002). The bias blind spot: Perceptions of bias in self versus others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 369–381.
Simon, H. A. (1955). A behavioral model of rational choice. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69, 99–118.
Stanovich, K. E. (2016). The comprehensive assessment of rational thinking. Educational Psychologist, 51, 23–34.
Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (2000). Individual differences in reasoning: Implications for the rationality debate? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 645–665.
Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (2008). On the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 672–695.
Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F., & Toplak, M. E. (2016). The rationality quotient: Toward a test of rational thinking. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Sternberg, R. J. (2002). Why smart people can be so stupid. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sternberg, R. J. (2003). A broad view of intelligence: The theory of successful intelligence. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 55, 139–154.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124–1131.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Bowes, S.M., Lilienfeld, S.O. (2020). Rationality. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1898
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1898
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-24610-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-24612-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences