The purpose of this study was to test a belief-bias effect on reasoning in relation to inhibitory control functions and to determine whether inhibition is activated in conflict syllogisms. A total of 85 university students (78% women, Mage = 20.51, SD = 2.90) participated in the study. We measured three types of inhibition – proactive interference resistance (the Brown-Peterson task and the Cued Recall task), distractor interference control (the Eriksen flanker letters and arrows tasks), and prepotent response inhibition (the Spatial and Numerical Stroop tasks). We administered a syllogistic reasoning task containing no-conflict and conflict syllogisms saturated by socially relevant content. We replicated the typical belief-bias effect on reasoning in invalid/believable conflict syllogisms. All three types of inhibition accounted for reasoning performance only on valid/unbelievable conflict syllogisms. Belief-bias was not registered, indicating an inverse relation of bias and inhibition.
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