Extreme Self-Referent Appraisals

Satisficing is when someone settles for judgements that are simply adequate in their explanation of observations. In science, this come to play with hypothesis generation. Some researcher might come to a hypothesis that is not clearly contradicted by available information, thus while not necessarily true, has not yet been proved false. In a study by Garst, Kerr, Harris, & Sheppard (2002) they look to see the generation of a single plausible hypothesis, makes it less likely that people will be more thorough in testing for alternative explanations. In all of their experiments, participants were asked to form a hypothesis given the data presented. The experimental group, they were first given a plausible hypothesized rule before being asked to
using a failed consequent to disprove the overall rule (Salnaitis, 2016). Essentially using contradictory evidence in order to disprove a hypothesis. In a study by Haigh and Dodd (2017), they looked to see if there was correlation between a failure to use disconfirming evidence and extreme self-referent appraisals of internal states, wanting to link a failure in modus tollens to mood swings. Participants were measured on the tendency to have either positive or negative self-referent appraisals, and then tested on 16 statements, each containing a simple premise, and a conclusion that corresponded to one of the four types of logical inferences (modus pones, modus tollens, etc.). What they found was those with a high tendency for the appraisals were more likely to fail at the disconfirming tasks, i.e. The have difficulty using modus tollens. This study suggest that mood swings may be related to the inability to access disconfirming evidence, and in fact this inability may be responsible for the increase in extreme self-referent appraisals, and because that has already been linked to mood swings, modus tollens may play a role in the maladaptive cognition of emotions. These two studies put together seem to suggest that the ability to look for alternative reasons for an event/condition is not only important in science, put also critical in everyday evaluations of ourselves, and perhaps even others. It seems rather important that we begin to teach the method of modus tollens to our children, before these cognitive maladaptations take root, and not just for the betterment of research, but for the mental health of all those