Circadian synchrony impacts on individuals' judgements, risk taking and belief perseverance

Existing research suggests that availability of cognitive resources has a potentially significant impact on information processing capabilities. Circadian variations constitute one of the factors that are likely to impact on an individual's availability of cognitive resources. Accordingly, this thesis sought to investigate the impact of circadian variations on information processing from the perspective of belief perseverance and framing effects. It comprises of three experiments that were conducted using a sample of students from Kingston University as the participants. Experiment 1 examined the influence of circadian variations on belief perseverance and the moderating impact of socially distributed thinking. The results reveal that participants tested at their circadian congruent times had significantly less belief perseverance compared to counterparts tested at their circadian incongruent times. Socially distributed thinking was also found to contribute towards a reduction in belief perseverance. Experiment 2 examined the influence of circadian variations on belief perseverance and type of reason given (supporting or disconfirming the belief) in a legal context. From the results, participants tested at their circadian congruent times reported higher mental alertness and greater task involvement compared to participants tested at their circadian incongruent times, but at a non-significant level. In addition, there was no interaction effect between time of testing and the type reason given on belief perseverance and confidence scores. Experiment 3 tested the effects of circadian variations on framing effects in the context of the Classic Asian Disease Problem, Lung Cancer and HIV Virus. Significant framing effects were found for participants tested at their circadian incongruent times. No significant interaction was found between framing and order of the frame. The thesis discussed the implications of the findings and offered recommendations.