Perspective effects in nondeontic versions of the Wason selection task

Perspective effects in the Wason four-card selection task occur when people choose mutually exclusive sets of cards depending on the perspective they adopt when making their choice. Previous demonstrations of perspective effe cts have been limited to deontic contexts-that is, problem contexts that in volve social duty, like permissions and obligations. In three experiments, we demonstrate perspective effects in nondeontic contexts, including a cont ext much like the original one employed by Wason (1966, 1968). We suggest t hat perspective effects arise whenever the task uses a rule that can be int erpreted biconditionally and different perspectives elicit different counte rexamples that match the predicted choice sets. This view is consistent wit h domain-general theories but not with domain-specific theories of deontic reasoning-for example, pragmatic reasoning schemas and social contract theo ry-that cannot explain perspective effects in nondeontic contexts.