Professor Shira Elqayam

Job: Professor of Cognitive Psychology & Cognitive Science

Faculty: Health and Life Sciences

School/department: School of Applied Social Sciences

Address: De Montfort, University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

T: +44 (0)116 257 7850

E: selqayam@dmu.ac.uk

W: https://www.dmu.ac.uk/hls

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Personal profile

Shira's research focuses on reasoning, decision making, and rationality. A major theme in her research is the study of normativity in rationality and in human inference. This is a two-pronged approach, encompassing both conceptual analysis and experimental research. The conceptual strand of this work is a critique of normativist conceptions of rationality, i.e. the idea that rationality should be judged by normative benchmarks (Elqayam & Evans, 2011; Evans & Elqayam, 2011).

The critique argues that normativism has led psychology of reasoning and decision making to dubious inference from ‘is’ to ‘ought’, as well as to a host of research biases, and that a descriptivist research agenda would benefit psychology.

The empirical strand of this theme (Elqayam et al., 2015; 2017) examines the way that people infer normative conclusions from descriptive premises. Findings indicate that such inference is driven by the causal link between action and outcome and the psychological value of the outcome, but it can be suppressed when reasoners are presented with competing outcomes or competing normative values.

Research group affiliations

Institute for Psychological Science

Publications and outputs

Developing and testing an integrative model of work-family conflict in a Chinese context
dc.title: Developing and testing an integrative model of work-family conflict in a Chinese context dc.contributor.author: Chen, Shujie; Cheng, M.; Elqayam, Shira; Scase, Mark dc.description.abstract: Given that the field of work-family conflict is overwhelmingly Western-focused and that the process of work-family conflict might change under a different cultural background, the aim of the present study was to develop and test an integrated work-family conflict model that is applicable in China. Using a sample of 520 Chinese participants and structural equation modelling in R studio, the differences between the present study and previous Western findings were identified. The results revealed that family support was positively related to time spent on family responsibilities and negatively related to life satisfaction; only work-to-family conflict, but not family-to-work conflict, had three forms of unique antecedent (time-, strain-, behavioural-based); and more surprisingly, work-family conflict was positively related to life satisfaction in China. This study refined our understanding of work-family conflict and enriched our knowledge of how work-family conflict acted in China’s work-family interface, providing directions for future cross-cultural work-family conflict studies. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link
Conceptual Spaces and the Strength of Similarity-based Arguments
dc.title: Conceptual Spaces and the Strength of Similarity-based Arguments dc.contributor.author: Douven, Igor; Elqayam, Shira; Gardenfors, Peter; Mirabile, Patricia dc.description.abstract: Central to the conceptual spaces framework is the thought that concepts can be studied mathematically, by geometrical and topological means. Various applications of the framework have already been subjected to empirical testing, mostly with excellent results, demonstrating the framework’s usefulness. So far untested is the suggestion that conceptual spaces may help explain certain inferences people are willing to make. The experiment reported in this paper focused on similarity-based arguments, testing the hypothesis that the strength of such arguments can be predicted from the structure of the conceptual space in which the items being reasoned about are represented. A secondary aim of the experiment concerned a recent inferentialist semantics for indicative conditionals, according to which the truth of a conditional requires the presence of a sufficiently strong inferential connection between its antecedent and consequent. To the extent that the strength of similarity-based inferences can be predicted from the geometry and topology of the relevant conceptual space, such spaces should help predict truth ratings of conditionals embodying a similarity-based inferential link. The results supported both hypotheses. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.
Inference strength predicts the probability of conditionals better than conditional probability does
dc.title: Inference strength predicts the probability of conditionals better than conditional probability does dc.contributor.author: Douven, Igor; Elqayam, Shira; Mirabile, Patricia dc.description.abstract: According to the philosophical theory of inferentialism and its psychological counterpart, Hypothetical Inferential Theory (HIT), the meaning of an indicative conditional centrally involves the strength of the inferential connection between its antecedent and its consequent. This paper states, for the first time, the implications of HIT for the probabilities of conditionals. We report two experiments comparing these implications with those of the suppositional account of conditionals, according to which the probability of a conditional equals the corresponding conditional probability. A total of 358 participants were presented with everyday conditionals across three different tasks: judging the probability of the conditionals; judging the corresponding conditional probabilities; and judging the strength of the inference from antecedent to consequent. In both experiments, we found inference strength to be a much stronger predictor of the probability of conditionals than conditional probability, thus supporting HIT. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.
Logic and uncertainty in the human mind: A tribute for David Over
dc.title: Logic and uncertainty in the human mind: A tribute for David Over dc.contributor.author: Elqayam, Shira; Douven, Igor; Evans, Jonathan, St B T; Cruz, Nicole
Conditionals and Inferential Connections: Toward a New Semantics
dc.title: Conditionals and Inferential Connections: Toward a New Semantics dc.contributor.author: Douven, Igor; Elqayam, Shira; Singmann, Henrik; van Wijnbergen-Huitink, Janneke dc.description.abstract: In previous published research (“Conditionals and Inferential Connections: A Hypothetical Inferential Theory,” Cognitive Psychology, 2018), we investigated experimentally what role the presence and strength of an inferential connection between a conditional’s antecedent and consequent plays in how people process that conditional. Our analysis showed the strength of that connection to be strongly predictive of whether participants evaluated the conditional as true, false, or neither true nor false. In this paper, we re-analyze the data from our previous research, now focusing on the semantics of conditionals rather than on how they are processed. Specifically, we use those data to compare the main extant semantics with each other and with inferentialism, a semantics according to which the truth of a conditional requires the presence of an inferential connection between the conditional’s component parts. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
Structured decision-making drives guidelines panels’ recommendations ‘for’ but not ‘against’ health interventions
dc.title: Structured decision-making drives guidelines panels’ recommendations ‘for’ but not ‘against’ health interventions dc.contributor.author: Djulbegovic, B.; Reljic, T.; Elqayam, Shira; Cuker, A.; Hozo, I.; Zhou, Q.; Li, S.-A.; Alexander, P.; Nieuwlaat, R.; Wiercioch, W.; Schünemann, H.; Guyatt, G. dc.description.abstract: Background: The determinants of guideline panels’ recommendations remain uncertain. Objective: To investigate factors considered by members of 8 panels convened by the American Society of Hematology (ASH) to develop guidelines using GRADE system. Study Design and Setting: web-based survey of the participants in the ASH guidelines panels. Analysis: two level hierarchical, random-effect, multivariable regression analysis to explore the relation between GRADE and non-GRADE factors and strength of recommendations (SOR). Results: In the primary analysis, certainty in evidence [OR=1.83; (95CI% 1.45 to 2.31)], balance of benefits and harms [OR=1.49 (95CI% 1.30 to 1.69)] and variability in patients’ values and preferences [OR=1.47 (95CI% 1.15 to 1.88)] proved the strongest predictors of SOR. In a secondary analysis, certainty of evidence was associated with a strong recommendation [OR=3.60 (95% CI 2.16 to 6.00)] when panel members recommended “for” interventions but not when they made recommendations “against” [OR=0.98 (95%CI: 0.57 to 1.8)] consistent with “yes” bias. Agreement between individual members and the group in rating SOR varied (kappa ranged from -0.01 to 0.64). Conclusion: GRADE’s conceptual framework proved, in general, highly associated with SOR. Failure of certainty of evidence to be associated with SOR against an intervention, suggest the need for improvements in the process.
How and why we reason from is to ought
dc.title: How and why we reason from is to ought dc.contributor.author: Evans, J. St. B. T.; Elqayam, Shira dc.description.abstract: Originally identified by Hume, the validity of is-ought inference is much debated in the meta-ethics literature. Our work shows that inference from is to ought typically proceeds from contextualised, value-laden causal utility conditional, bridging into a deontic conclusion. Such conditional statements tell us what actions are needed to achieve or avoid consequences that are good or bad. Psychological research has established that people generally reason fluently and easily with utility conditionals. Our own research also has shown that people’s reasoning from is to ought (deontic introduction) is pragmatically sensitive and adapted to achieving the individual’s goals. But how do we acquire the necessary deontic rules? In this paper, we provide a rationale for this facility linked to Evans’s (2010) framework of dual mind rationality. People have an old mind (in evolutionary terms) which derives its rationality by repeating what has worked in the past, mostly by experiential learning. New mind rationality, in contrast, is evolutionarily recent, uniquely developed in humans, and draws on our ability to mentally simulate hypothetical events removed in time and place. We contend that the new mind achieves its goals by inducing and applying deontic rules and that a mechanism of deontic introduction evolved for this purpose. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
Many faces of rationality: Implications of the great rationality debate for clinical decision-making
dc.title: Many faces of rationality: Implications of the great rationality debate for clinical decision-making dc.contributor.author: Djulbegovic, B.; Elqayam, Shira dc.description.abstract: Given that more than 30% of healthcare costs are wasted on inappropriate care, suboptimal care is increasingly connected to the quality of medical decisions. It has been argued that personal decisions are the leading cause of death, and 80% of healthcare expenditures result from physicians' decisions. Therefore, improving healthcare necessitates improving medical decisions, ie, making decisions (more) rational. Drawing on writings fromThe Great Rationality Debate from the fields of philosophy, economics, and psychology, we identify core ingredients of rationality commonly encountered across various theoretical models. Rationality is typically classified under umbrella of normative (addressing the question how people “should” or “ought to” make their decisions) and descriptive theories of decision‐ making (which portray how people actually make their decisions). Normative theories of rational thought of relevance to medicine include epistemic theories that direct practice of evidencebasedmedicine and expected utility theory, which provides the basis for widely used clinical decision analyses. Descriptive theories of rationality of direct relevance to medical decision‐making include bounded rationality, argumentative theory of reasoning, adaptive rationality, dual processing model of rationality, regret‐based rationality, pragmatic/substantive rationality, and meta‐rationality. For the first time, we provide a review of wide range of theories and models of rationality. We showed that what is “rational” behaviour under one rationality theory may be irrational under the other theory. We also showed that context is of paramount importance to rationality and that no one model of rationality can possibly fit all contexts. We suggest that in context‐poor situations, such as policy decision‐making, normative theories based on expected utility informed by best research evidence may provide the optimal approach to medical decision‐making, whereas in the context‐rich circumstances other types of rationality, informed by human cognitive architecture and driven by intuition and emotions such as the aim to minimize regret, may provide better solution to the problem at hand. The choice of theory under which we operate is important as it determines both policy and our individual decision‐making. dc.description: open access article
Rational decision-making in medicine: implications for overuse and underuse
dc.title: Rational decision-making in medicine: implications for overuse and underuse dc.contributor.author: Djulbegovic, B.; Elqayam, Shira; Dale, W. dc.description.abstract: In spite of substantial spending and resource utilization, today's health care remains characterized by poor outcomes, largely due to overuse (over-testing/treatment) or underuse (under-testing/treatment) of services. To a significant extent, this is a consequence of low-quality decision-making that appears to violate various rationality criteria. Such sub-optimal decision-making is considered a leading cause of death and is responsible for more than 80% of health expenses. In this paper, we address the issue of overuse or underuse of healthcare interventions from the perspective of rational choice theory. We show that what is considered rational under one decision theory may not be considered rational under a different theory. We posit that the questions and concerns regarding both underuse and overuse have to be addressed within a specific theoretical framework. The applicable rationality criterion, and thus the “appropriateness” of health care delivery choices, depends on theory selection that is appropriate to specific clinical situations. We provide a number of illustrations showing how the choice of theoretical framework influences both our policy and individual decision-making. We also highlight the practical implications of our analysis for the current efforts to measure the quality of care and link such measurements to the financing of healthcare services. dc.description: open access article
Conditionals and inferential connections: A hypothetical inferential theory
dc.title: Conditionals and inferential connections: A hypothetical inferential theory dc.contributor.author: Douven, Igor; Elqayam, Shira; Singmann, Henrik; van Wijnbergen-Huitink, Janneke dc.description.abstract: Intuition suggests that for a conditional to be evaluated as true, there must be some kind of connection between its component clauses. In this paper, we formulate and test a new psychological theory to account for this intuition. We combined previous semantic and psychological theorizing to propose that the key to the intuition is a relevance-driven, satisficing-bounded inferential connection between antecedent and consequent. To test our theory, we created a novel experimental paradigm in which participants were presented with a soritical series of objects, notably colored patches (Experiments 1 and 4) and spheres (Experiment 2), or both (Experiment 3), and were asked to evaluate related conditionals embodying non-causal inferential connections (such as “If patch number 5 is blue, then so is patch number 4”). All four experiments displayed a unique response pattern, in which (largely determinate) responses were sensitive to parameters determining inference strength, as well as to consequent position in the series, in a way analogous to belief bias. Experiment 3 showed that this guaranteed relevance can be suppressed, with participants reverting to the defective conditional. Experiment 4 showed that this pattern can be partly explained by a measure of inference strength. is pattern supports our theory’s “principle of relevant inference” and “principle of bounded inference,” highlighting the dual processing characteristics of the inferential connection. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link; Open Access article

Click here for a full listing of Shira Elqayam's publications and outputs.

Key research outputs

Research interests/expertise

Shira's research interests are in higher mental processes and primarily in reasoning, decision making, and their linguistic aspects. The main themes in her work are normative rationality and thinking, disjunctive thinking, dual process theories, and iterative and interactive processes in analytic thinking.

Areas of teaching

Conceptual Issues and Critical Debates in Psychology (Module leader)
Project supervision

Qualifications

PhD, MA, BA

Membership of professional associations and societies

Experimental Psychology Society

British Psychological Society

Psychonomic Society

Conference attendance

Recent (since 2014)

Organised international events

Elqayam, S. and Ackerman, R. (Organisers). Shedding metacognitive light on reasoning processes. International workshop, De Montfort University, 9-11 February, 2017.

Convened symposia & workshops

Elqayam, S. (convenor). Current Issues in Rationality: Deductive and Probabilistic Reasoning. Symposium convened for The second biennial International Convention of Psychological Science, the Austria Center Vienna in Vienna, Austria, 23-25 March 2017.

Elqayam, S., and Skovgaard Olsen, N. (convenors). Rationality and normativity. Symposium convened for the Eighth International Conference on Thinking, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA, 4-6 August, 2016.

Elqayam, S., and Douven, I.E. (convenors). A Festschrift symposium for David Over. Symposium convened for the Eighth International Conference on Thinking, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA, 4-6 August, 2016.

Keynotes and Invited talks: International conferences and workshops

Grounded rationality: The case of is-to-ought inference. Keynote address, the Sixth Annual Meeting of the New Frameworks of Rationality Program, Schloss Etelsen, Germany, 5-8 March, 2017.

Attitudes, context, and rationality. Invited talk, to be delivered at the Regensburg Workshop on Attitudes in Context, Regensburg, Germany, 14-16 September, 2017

Grounded rationality: A descriptivist theory of rationality in context. Invited talk, to be delivered at the workshop “Theories of Rationality: Descriptive and Normative Aspects”, University of Bonn, Germany, 1-3 from September, 1-3 September, 2017.

The Equation meets Grounded Rationality. The Eighth International Conference on Thinking, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA, 4-6 August, 2016.

Dutch book arguments are not all they are cracked out to be. Conference in honour of Ken Manktelow’s retirement, Wolverhampton University, 15 May, 2014.

Invited talks: Seminars

Rationality in context: Clinical medicine, satisficing, and grounded rationality. Presented at the Behavioral Science & Management seminar, the Technion, Israel, 14 December, 2016.

Moral judgement and the creation of novel norms. Research seminar of the School of Psychology, Queen’s University Belfast. Belfast, 3 March, 2016.

Normative rationality and the generative capacity of norms. The Center for the Study of Rationality, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 16 April, 2015.

Refereed Conference Contributions

Elqayam, S., Douven, I., Singmann, H., & van Wijnbergen-Huitink, J. (2017). Inferential connections in conditionals: A hypothetical inferential theory (HIT). Paper presented at the second biennial International Convention of Psychological Science, the Austria Center Vienna in Vienna, Austria, 23-25 March 2017.

Elqayam, S., Thompson, Wilkinson, M.R. V.A., Over, D.E., Evans, and J.St.B.T. (2015). inference from is to ought mediates moral judgement. Paper presented at the Eighth London Reasoning Workshop. 4-6 August, 2015, Birkbeck College, London, UK.

Elqayam, S., Thompson, V.A., Over, D.E., Evans, J.St.B.T., and Wilkinson, M.R. (2014). Models of is-ought inference. Paper presented at the Seventh London Reasoning Workshop. 9-10 July, 2014, Birkbeck College, London, UK.

Key articles information

Recent outputs (Since 2014)

Books

Elqayam, S., & Over, D.E. (Eds.) (2016). From is to ought: The place of normative models in the study of human thought. Lausanne: Frontiers Media SA.

Elqayam, S., Bonnefon, J.F., & Over, D.E. (Eds.) (2016). New paradigm psychology of reasoning: Basic and applied Perspectives. Hove: Routledge Psychology.

Refereed journal articles

Djulbegovic, M., & Elqayam, S. (2017). Many faces of rationality: Implications of the great rationality debate for clinical decision-making. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 1-8.

Elqayam, S., Wilkinson, M.R., Thompson, V.A., Over, D.E., & Evans, J.St.B.T. (2017). Utilitarian moral judgment exclusively coheres with inference from is to ought. Frontiers in Psychology: Cognitive Science, 8, 1042.

Elqayam, S., & Over, D.E. (2016). Editorial: From is to ought: The place of normative models in the study of human thought. Frontiers in Psychology 7, 628.

Elqayam, S., Thompson, V.A., Wilkinson, M.R., Evans, J.St.B.T., & Over, D.E. (2015). Deontic Introduction: A Theory of Inference from Is to Ought. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 41(5), 1516-1532.

Djulbegovic, M., Beckstead, J., Elqayam, S., Reljic, T., Kumar, A., Paidas, C., & Djulbegovic, B. (2015). Thinking styles and regret in physicians. PLoS ONE, 10(8) doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0134038

van Wijnbergen-Huitink, J., Elqayam, S., & Over, D.E. (2015). The probability of iterated conditionals. Cognitive Science. 39(4), 788-803.

Djulbegovic, B., Beckstead, J.W., Elqayam, S., Reljic, T., et al. (2014). Evaluation of physicians’ cognitive styles. Medical Decision Making, 34, 627-637.

Djulbegovic, B., Elqayam, S., Rejic, T., Hozo, I., Tsalatsanis, A., Kumar, A., Beckstead, J., Chen, R., Taylor, S., & Cannon-Browers, J. (2014). How do physicians decide to treat: an empirical evaluation of the threshold model. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 14, 47-57.

Refereed commentaries

Elqayam, S. (2015). Instrumental, bounded and grounded rationality: Comments on Lockie. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4(11), 47-51.

Book chapters

Elqayam, S. (2017). New psychology of reasoning. In: Ball, L.J. & Thompson, V.A. (Eds.) International Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning. Hove, UK: Routledge Psychology.

Elqayam, S. (2016). Scams and rationality: Dutch book arguments are not all they’re cracked up to be. In N. Galbraith, D. E. Over, & E. J. Lucas (Eds.), The thinking mind: A Festschrift for Ken Manktelow. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

Elqayam, S. (2016). Grounded Rationality and the New Paradigm Psychology of Reasoning. In: L. Macchi, M. Bagassi, & R. Viale (eds.) Cognitive unconscious and human rationality. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Current research students

Ashleigh Jeffries, De Montfort University.

Externally funded research grants information

Elqayam, S., Thompson, V.A., Over, D.E. & Evans, J.St.B.T. (2012). Generative capacity of norms: A theory of inference from 'is' to 'ought'. Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant, £75,450. The grant was featured in the Leverhulme Trust’s newsletter and mentioned in Times Higher Education.

Deontic introduction: How to infer the ‘ought’ from the ‘is’. Experimental Psychology Society small grant. July 2009-2011
Collaborators: Valerie Thompson, University of Saskatchewan, Canada; Jonathan Evans, University of Plymouth, UK; David Over, Durham University, UK

Iterated conditionals. As ordinary as can be? EURO-XPRAG (funded by European Science Foundation), research travel grant March 2010-March 2012.
Collaborators: Janneke Huitink, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany; David Over, Durham University, UK

Professional esteem indicators

Keynote address

Grounded rationality: The case of is-to-ought inference. Keynote address, the Sixth Annual Meeting of the New Frameworks of Rationality Program, Schloss Etelsen, Germany, 5-8 March, 2017.

Editing

Associate editor, Forntiers in Psychology: Cognitive Science.

Associate editor, Forntiers in Psyhcology: Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology

Editorial board: Thinking & Reasoning

Guest editor (with Jean Francois Bonnefon and David Over), special issue of 'Thinking and Reasoning on 'New Paradigm Psychology of Reasoning', forthcoming.

Host Associate Editor (with David Over), Research Topic of Frontiers in Cognitive Science on the topic From is to ought: The place of normative models in the study of human thought.

Reviewing

Regular reviewer for Thinking and Reasoning.
Ad hoc reviewer for Acta Psychologica, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Cognition, Cognitive Science, European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, Frontiers in Cognitive Science, International Journal of Psychology, Memory & Cognition, Minds and Machines, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Synthese.
Grant reviewer for the Economic and Social Research council, Israel Science Foundation, Mofet Institute Israel, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Research Foundation Flanders (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen, FWO).

Case studies

Book information on Amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Reason-Psychology-Press-Festschrift/dp/1848720157/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311956072&sr=8-1

Blogs citing Elqayam & Evans (2011)
http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/10/bbs-paper-on-normativism-in-psychology.html.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/7fs/elqayam_evans_2011_argue_against_a_certain_kind/

Last edited

September 2017