Debiasing thinking among non-WEIRD reasoners

Human reasoning has been shown to be biased in a variety of situations. While most studies have focused on samples of WEIRD participants (from Western Educated Industrialized Rich and Democratic societies), the sparse non-WEIRD data on the topic suggest an even stronger propensity for biased reasoning. This could be explained by a competence issue (people lack the ability to integrate logical knowledge into their reasoning) or a performance issue (people possess the logical knowledge but do not know it is relevant). We addressed this question using a debiasing paradigm with the base-rate task on a sample of non-industrialized people, the Himba of Namibia. After a short training, most participants were debiased, lending credence to the performance account. Debiasing was however to some extent boosted by schooling and living environment suggesting that competence also plays a role (in that more acquired knowledge allows for a higher training benefit). Results imply that debias interventions can be successfully employed to boost sound reasoning around the world.

A 21st century cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote people of Namibia

This research sketches the cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote population from Northern Namibia living in a non-industrial society almost completely devoid of modern artefacts. We compared the Himba sample to a French sample, exploring cognitive reflection, moral judgement, cooperative behaviour, paranormal beliefs, and happiness. We looked for both differences and similarities across cultures, and for the way cognitive functioning is associated with a range of demographic variables. Results showed some important group differences, with the Himba being more intuitive, more religious, happier, and less utilitarian than the French participants. Further, the predictors of these beliefs and behaviours differed between the two groups. The present results provide additional support to the recent line of research targeting cultural variations and similarities, and call for the need to expand psychology research beyond the Western world.