Intense Emotional Experiences and Logicality: An Exploration of Deductive Reasoning in Survivors of Sexual Abuse

Abstract

Previous laboratory research has shown that emotion impairs logicality in deductive reasoning; however, few studies have examined the effect of more intense personal emotional experiences. We examined logicality in deductive reasoning in groups of women who have experienced sexual abuse, and control participants. The reasoning task included problems with three content types: neutral, generally emotional, and related to sexual abuse. Survivors of sexual abuse completed questionnaires assessing the level of distress and impact caused by the events. Survivors provided less logical responses to neutral and abuse-related problems, compared to controls. However, women reporting higher levels of distress following experiences of abuse also showed increased relative logicality in reasoning about abuse-related contents, compared to neutral contents. Results show that trauma can have a negative impact on some aspects of higher-level cognitive function, but that reasoning about personally meaningful negative emotional contents does not necessarily lead to impaired logicality.