La rationalité des mortels : les pensées de mort perturbent les processus analytiques

The work presented in this thesis is concerned with the intimate relationship between human rationality and the consciousness of death. They jointly use two theories, that is, the terror management theory, and the dual-process theory of thinking. Terror management theory describes the mechanisms that are triggered when thoughts related to our own death are activated. Importantly, these mechanisms consume mental resources that the dual-process theory identifies as necessary for rational thought. Therefore, are we able to think rationally when thinking about our own death? In other words, can our analytical skills be efficiently used when thoughts of our own death are conscious? Are people with high cognitive abilities better equipped to think about death? What is the real impact of these thoughts on our reasoning, but also on our judgments and decisions? We seek to answer these questions in different areas of thought: logical inferences, strategic decisions, and moral judgment. Different experimental protocols are implemented in order to comprehensively explore the influence of thoughts of death while using these higher order cognitive functions. The results highlight grim, but fascinating effects on all our activities that require to mobilize cognitive resources. In general, participants who thought about their own death seem to no longer have access to their resources and therefore exhibit less elaborate behaviors, based on intuitions or heuristics, at the expense of normative rules of reasoning. These findings let appear a strange paradox in terms of evolution and adaptation because our analytical capacities finally seem to serve us to forget precisely what they made us discover.Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse s'intéressent à l'intime relation entre la rationalité de l'homme et sa conscience de la mort. Ils utilisent conjointement deux théories, la Théorie de la Gestion de la Terreur, et la théorie Dual-Process de la pensée. La Théorie de la Gestion de la Terreur décrit les mécanismes qui se déclenchent lorsque des pensées liées à notre propre mort sont activées. De façon importante, ces mécanismes consomment des ressources mentales que la théorie Dual-Process identifie comme nécessaires à la pensée rationnelle. Sommes-nous dès lors capables de raisonner de manière rationnelle lorsque nous pensons à notre propre mort ? En d'autres termes, pouvons-nous utiliser correctement notre capacité analytique lorsque des pensées liées à notre propre mort sont conscientes ? Les personnes ayant de grandes capacités cognitives sont elles mieux armées pour penser à la mort ? Quel est le réel impact des pensées de mort sur notre raisonnement, mais aussi sur nos jugements et décisions ? Nous cherchons à répondre à ces questions dans différents domaines de la pensée : les inférences logiques, les décisions stratégiques, et le jugement moral. Différents protocoles expérimentaux sont mis en œuvre dans le but d'explorer de manière exhaustive l'influence des pensées de mort lorsque nous devons utiliser ces hautes fonctions cognitives. Les résultats mettent en lumière de sinistres, mais fascinants effets et ce sur toutes nos activités nécessitant des ressources cognitives. De manière générale, les participants qui ont pensé à leur propre mort semblent ne plus avoir accès à leurs ressources cognitives et montrent par conséquent des comportements moins élaborés, intuitifs et heuristiques, au détriment des règles normatives de raisonnement. Ces découvertes laissent apparaître un étrange paradoxe en termes d'évolution et d'adaptation puisque nos capacités analytiques semblent finalement nous servir à oublier ce qu'elles nous ont justement fait découvrir

La religion dans la gestion de la terreur

International audienc

The rationality of mortals : thoughts of death disrupt analytic processing

Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse s'intéressent à l'intime relation entre la rationalité de l'homme et sa conscience de la mort. Ils utilisent conjointement deux théories, la Théorie de la Gestion de la Terreur, et la théorie Dual-Process de la pensée. La Théorie de la Gestion de la Terreur décrit les mécanismes qui se déclenchent lorsque des pensées liées à notre propre mort sont activées. De façon importante, ces mécanismes consomment des ressources mentales que la théorie Dual-Process identifie comme nécessaires à la pensée rationnelle. Sommes-nous dès lors capables de raisonner de manière rationnelle lorsque nous pensons à notre propre mort ? En d'autres termes, pouvons-nous utiliser correctement notre capacité analytique lorsque des pensées liées à notre propre mort sont conscientes ? Les personnes ayant de grandes capacités cognitives sont elles mieux armées pour penser à la mort ? Quel est le réel impact des pensées de mort sur notre raisonnement, mais aussi sur nos jugements et décisions ? Nous cherchons à répondre à ces questions dans différents domaines de la pensée : les inférences logiques, les décisions stratégiques, et le jugement moral. Différents protocoles expérimentaux sont mis en œuvre dans le but d'explorer de manière exhaustive l'influence des pensées de mort lorsque nous devons utiliser ces hautes fonctions cognitives. Les résultats mettent en lumière de sinistres, mais fascinants effets et ce sur toutes nos activités nécessitant des ressources cognitives. De manière générale, les participants qui ont pensé à leur propre mort semblent ne plus avoir accès à leurs ressources cognitives et montrent par conséquent des comportements moins élaborés, intuitifs et heuristiques, au détriment des règles normatives de raisonnement. Ces découvertes laissent apparaître un étrange paradoxe en termes d'évolution et d'adaptation puisque nos capacités analytiques semblent finalement nous servir à oublier ce qu'elles nous ont justement fait découvrir.The work presented in this thesis is concerned with the intimate relationship between human rationality and the consciousness of death. They jointly use two theories, that is, the terror management theory, and the dual-process theory of thinking. Terror management theory describes the mechanisms that are triggered when thoughts related to our own death are activated. Importantly, these mechanisms consume mental resources that the dual-process theory identifies as necessary for rational thought. Therefore, are we able to think rationally when thinking about our own death? In other words, can our analytical skills be efficiently used when thoughts of our own death are conscious? Are people with high cognitive abilities better equipped to think about death? What is the real impact of these thoughts on our reasoning, but also on our judgments and decisions? We seek to answer these questions in different areas of thought: logical inferences, strategic decisions, and moral judgment. Different experimental protocols are implemented in order to comprehensively explore the influence of thoughts of death while using these higher order cognitive functions. The results highlight grim, but fascinating effects on all our activities that require to mobilize cognitive resources. In general, participants who thought about their own death seem to no longer have access to their resources and therefore exhibit less elaborate behaviors, based on intuitions or heuristics, at the expense of normative rules of reasoning. These findings let appear a strange paradox in terms of evolution and adaptation because our analytical capacities finally seem to serve us to forget precisely what they made us discover

Don’t you see that its cold! Exploring the roles of cognitive reflection, climate science literacy, illusion of knowledge, and political orientation in climate change skepticism

The issue of climate change has become central in recent years as alarming data accumulate. It nevertheless has its critics, consisting of people denying climate change or minimizing the responsibility of human beings in the process. This skepticism partly derives from the complexity of the topic, encouraging people to rely on cognitive shortcuts to grasp the phenomenon. We question the role of cognitive reflection, general and climate changerelated knowledge, overconfidence, and political partisanship (plus additional expected confounding variables) in this process through a package of three studies (total N = 1031). In a first study, we showed that an intuitive mindset predicted greater skepticism relative to an analytical mindset while controlling for cognitive ability and the degree to which individuals value science, suggesting that cognitive sophistication and trust are two key parameters of climate change skepticism. A second study highlighted that climate science knowledge and knowledge overconfidence stood out as strong and independent predictors of skepticism relative to cognitive reflection. A final study revealed that cognitive reflection and climate change knowledge generated less influence on climate change skepticism among conservatives than among liberals and moderates, suggesting that reliance on deliberative thinking and knowledgeability on climate science are not sufficient to mitigate climate change skepticism among conservatives. We discuss the critical interplay between cognitive processes and political partisanship in this ongoing debate

Probing the causal contribution of reasoning to third-party moral judgment of harm transgressions

Recent work supports the role of reasoning in third-party moral judgment of harm transgressions. In particular, reasoning may increase the weight of intention in moral judgment of accidental harm, a situation that presumably requires judges to balance considerations about the outcome endured by a victim on the one hand, and considerations about an agent’s intention to cause harm on the other hand. Three preregistered lab-based studies aimed to bring further evidence for the causal contribution of reasoning to moral judgment of harm transgressions using experimental manipulations borrowed from the reasoning literature: time pressure (Experiment 1), cognitive load (Experiment 2), priming (Experiment 3). Participants (N = 178) were presented with short fictitious scenarios in which the agent’s intention toward a potential victim (harmful or neutral intent) and the action’s outcome (victim’s injury or no harm) were manipulated. Participants then reported their moral judgment of the agent’s behavior (wrongness and deserved punishment) and their empathy toward the victim. Overall, we did not find an effect of the reasoning manipulation on judgment severity. Participants were not more severe toward accidental transgressors when reasoning was prevented. The present study does not bring further support to the idea that accounting for intention in third-party moral judgment of harm transgressions may be a cognitively costly process, and we discuss these null findings in light of the moral judgment literature

You’re heartless, I’m less: self-image and social norms in moral judgment

International audienc

You're heartless, I’m less: Moral judgment and social norm

Are moral judgments to sacrificial dilemmas shaped by a latent social norm? The present research addresses this issue. We report a set of four studies which question the existence of a social norm in the longstanding deontism/utilitarian debate by relying on two original tools, namely substitution technique and self-presentation paradigm. Study 1 showed that American participants asked to answer like most Americans would do were more utilitarian than control participants who answered in their own name (Study 1). Study 2 showed that participants instructed to answer in a disapproval fashion were more utilitarian than both participants instructed to answer in an approval fashion and control participants. Importantly, no difference was observed between the approval and control conditions, suggesting that participants naturally align their moral judgments with a latent norm. Study 3a and 3b explored the effect of the activation of a deontic norm using the substitution instruction on subsequent impression formation. Although we replicated the effect of substitution instruction, we failed to show that activating a norm in a given individual shaped its evaluation of other people who do not align with this norm. Finally, we report a mini meta-analysis targeting the pooled effect and homogeneity among our studies

Conspiracy beliefs and analytical thinking in COVID-19 information web search

This work has been done in the frame of a Master 1 thesis in cognitive psycholog