# Individual Differences in Syllogistic Reasoning Performance: Why and When do Individuals Differ? - Materials This folder contains all information on materials, procedure, and participants reported in Dames, H., Klauer, K. C., & Ragni, M. (in preparation). The associations between personality, cognitive ability, and reasoning and Dames, H., Klauer, K. C., & Ragni, M. (in preparation). The stability of syllogistic reasoning performance over time Authors: Hannah Dames, Karl Christoph Klauer, Marco Ragni Email: <damesh@cs.uni-freiburg.de> University of Freiburg, May 2020 ## Short study description: During the course of three experimental sessions, the present research analyzed how the reasoning performance of 100 participants was related to various, assumed influential factors (e.g., personality traits, cognitive abilities, working memory capacity). ## Materials All materials were presented in German. Here, we will only briefly sum up the instruments used to measure participants’ individual characteristics and their reasoning performance. For a detailed description of the reasoning tasks and the instruments please refer to the corresponding manuscript (in preparation). In the syllogistic reasoning tasks, participants had to generate a conclusion for all 64 possible categorical syllogism types. Each problem consisted of two premises and asked for a conclusion that can be drawn based on these premises. The study used a production task design and thus, participants were presented with the two premises and were then asked to generate a conclusion. The Big Five personality traits were assessed with the German Big-Five-Inventory-SOEP (BFI-S; Gerlitz & Schupp, 2005) comprised of 15 items, with three items for each Big Five dimension Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. To measure the individual’s tendency to engage in and enjoy reflective, complex, and challenging thinking, the German short Version (Bless, Wänke, Bohner, Fellhauer, & Schwarz, 1994) of the Need for Cognition (NFC) scale was administered (16 items; Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). Visuo-spatial working memory was administered using a computerized version of the Corsi block-tapping task (Corsi, 1973; Milner, 1971). The mean between participant’s estimated highest forward and backward span (max 9) was used as a measure for visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) capacity. Verbal WM capacity was assessed by a verbal complex span task using a modified version of the Turner and Engle (1989) operation span (OS) test following the procedure and item sets of an open-source, Java-based version (Stone & Towse, 2015). We measured the proportion correct method (prop-score) of scoring, which refers to the proportion of items that a participant recalled in the correct serial position during the task. For the assessment of participants’ general cognitive ability, a non-verbal task, the short form of the Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) was employed (Bors & Stokes, 1998). To measure interindividual differences in the individuals’ intuitive–analytic cognitive styles the extended seven-item Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) consisting of the original three items (Frederick, 2005) and four additional items (Toplak et al., 2014) was used. Self-efficacy expectations were assessed with the ultra-short version, German General Self-Efficacy Short Scale (German: ASKU; Beierlein et al., 2012; Beierlein et al., 2013). Note, that this study also conducted a short conditional reasoning test within the first session. ## Procedure All three sessions were computer based. The experiment consisted of three sessions, each one week apart from the next. The participation timeslots were allotted based on strict requirements (see manuscript). Experimental overview of the three sessions and the corresponding measures. - Session 1: Demography, Big Five, NFC, Corsi, OS, Conditionals, ASKU - Session 2: Syllogisms + motivational questions, CRT, questions related to strategy when solving syllogisms, closing questions - Session 3: Syllogisms + motivational questions, Raven APM, ASKU, questions related to strategy when solving syllogisms, closing questions ## Sample Size Description: The initial sample consisted of N = 108 participants. For all three assessments, two participants were excluded from the study due to a misunderstanding of the task and resulting in random answers (the persons stated to have only pressed NVC throughout the experiment). The dataset uploaded here contains this dataset. Note that for the publication of our studies we additionally excluded another participant who did not complete the full study (dropouts: n = 1). Furthermore, to ensure that participants were not trained in logics, we excluded participants with an educational background in mathematics, philosophy with logic-courses, and informatics (n = 5). The final sample reported in the manuscript thus consisted of n = 100 participants (69% female, 30% male, 1% other; Mage = 25.23, SDage = 5.77). Most of the participants (92%) had graduated from high-school (German: “Abitur”) and 63% of the participants were in training or enrolled in a university programme. German was the native language of all participants. ### Dummy-links to the studies In order to achieve maximal transparency regarding our experiments, we created three dummy-links that allow you to click through all three sessions. Please note, that these links can only be accessed upon invitation. Please, ask for access for the "procedure" component.