Constraint Satisfaction Processes in Social Reasoning

We show that constraint satisfaction processes (coherence based reasoning) play an important role in social reasoning, and that social reasoning violates key assumptions of classic models of judgment and decision-making. Constraint satisfaction models predict a bi-directional flow of influence between evaluations of evidence for a judgment and the judgment itself, such that an evolving judgment can influence the evaluation of evidence. In contrast, models of judgment and decision-making, such as Bayesian models, SEU and Information Integration Theory assume that the direction of influence is only from the evaluations to the judgment. We examined two very different social reasoning tasks, a judgment about whether a young dating couple would get married, and a legal case about the guilt of a defendant charged with murder. In both studies, subjects exhibited strong coherence effects, such that the evaluation of evidence shifted over time to become more coherent with the final judgment. We note the similarity of constraint satisfaction models to classic cognitive consistency theories in social psychology, such as Cognitive Dissonance Theory.