Evidence that a specialized bluff detection mechanism exists, which is dissociable from cheater-detection and is only triggered by conditional costs deriving from a social agent

Do humans have cognitive adaptations for reasoning about threat? Evidence from the Wason selection task. Aaron Daniel Lenihan. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: Rational choice theory says people think about and respond to future costs and benefits using a single optimization algorithm. However, cost-benefit optimization is illsuited for situations where future costs and benefits are the conditional promises of other social agents. In these situations, one must not only weigh the promised costs and benefits, but also assess their sincerity. This task poses unique computational problems, requiring unique cognitive solutions. Interestingly, the problems and solutions are different depending on whether the conditional promise is a benefit (social exchange) or a cost (threat). Heeding conditionally promised benefits makes one vulnerable to cheating. This problem is solved by cognitive adaptations that detect cheaters. Heeding conditionally promised costs makes one vulnerable to bluffs. This problem should have selected for cognitive adaptations to detect bluffs. To test for the existence of a hypothesized bluff detection mechanism, I conducted an experiment using the Wason selection task to compare people’s ability to infer conditional rule violations for rules framed as threats with rules framed as social exchanges and natural hazards. Experimental results provide evidence that a specialized bluff detection mechanism exists, which is dissociable from cheater-detection and is only triggered by conditional costs deriving from a social agent.