| People differ in how conflicted they are between potential responses to reasoning problems,
which can impact metacognitive processes. The current study investigated the relationship
between decisional conflict and confidence and how decisional conflict differs between intuitive
and deliberative responses to logical and moral reasoning problems. A sample of 398 participants
on Prolific completed a series of logical and moral reasoning problems, rating their decisional
conflict and confidence for each answer. Higher decisional conflict was associated with
decreased confidence for logical and moral problems, but the relationship was stronger for moral
reasoning problems at high levels of decisional conflict. There was no difference between
decisional conflict for consequentialist and deontological responses to moral reasoning problems.
However, deliberative responses to moral reasoning problems were associated with significantly
more decisional conflict than intuitive responses. Surprisingly, deliberative responses to logical
reasoning problems were associated with lower levels of decisional conflict than intuitive
responses. Results are discussed in the context of previous findings and theories of
metacognition and reasoning.
Keywords: decisional conflict, metacognition, logical reasoning, moral reasoning,
decision-making |