Gender, rationality, and base-rate explanations for increasing trends

Two experiments examined the effects of gender and rational thinking style on the relative weight accorded base-rate and non-base-rate explanations for increasingly positive and negative trends depicted with frequency data. Experiment 1 revealed men judged base-rate explanations to be more important than non-base-rate explanations for both positive and negative trends, but women showed the same proclivity only for negative trends. High rationals judged non-base-rate explanations for negative trends as less important than did low rationals. When Experiment 2 participants spontaneously generated explanations for the trends, proportionally more high rationals than low rationals adduced base-rate explanations for-negative trends, but no rationality differences emerged for positive trends. No gender differences were significant. Results are discussed in terms of gender differences in the utilization of available base-rate cues, and highly rational individuals' propensity to use based-rate data to explain away threatening trends to buffer themselves from anxiety and depression.