DOES INDUCTIVE REASONING FAVOR THE SOLUTI ON OF COMPLEX PROBLEMS

There is a controversy concerning whether or not inductive reasoning a nd, closely connected to it, fluid intelligence supports the solving o f complex problems. The available empirical evidence, however relies o n correlations or the lack of them beta een measures of intelligence a nd measures of problem solving. In order to establish the causal relat ions, training experiments have been performed where the experimental group was trained in inductive reasoning and the control group perform ed different activities. After training, the subjects had to solve a c omputer simulation of a complex problem. Each of the experiments was e ffective in improving inductive reasoning, though to different extents , and these improvements led to a correspondingly higher performance w ith the complex problem. Based upon the results and the underlying the ory it is concluded that inductive reasoning generally supports solvin g complex problems, if it is made use of it.