Exploring the relationship between response time, studying STEM and substitution bias

Abstract

As ‘cognitive misers’, humans often fall prey to substitution bias, whereby a difficult problem is mentally substituted for an easier one. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to explore individual differences in vulnerability to substitution bias. Results demonstrate that studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, and spending more time on the problem correlates to a reduced likelihood of substitution bias. However, there was no interaction between studying STEM and time spent solving the problem on the likelihood of substitution bias. We discuss the possibility that education-related increases in mathematical or logical thinking skills engage the effortful and slow aspects of dual-process systems of human cognition.

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