Psychology, Logic, and Individual/Social Decision-Making

PhD Course 2025/2026

Department of Pedagogy, Psychology and Philosophy – University of Cagliari

Title: Psychology, Logic, and Individual/Social Decision-Making
Professors: Oriana Mosca and Hector Carlos Freytes
Hours: 15 hours.
Chronogram: 5 lessons of 3 hours. Starting in May with dates, times and classrooms to be defined.
Modality: presence.
Language: English or/and Italian.
Evaluation: Monographic work.
Preliminary knowledge: This course does not come with mandatory requirements in terms of prior knowledge and skills. The course is open to both students who are completely unfamiliar with the cognitive and decision sciences, as well as to students who have had ample prior exposure to corresponding research.
Contacts: oriana.mosca@unica.it, hfreytes@gmail.com

Short description and program

Suitable for Ph.D students in Psychology, Pedagogy, and Philosophy, the course aims to establish a comparative study regarding the information and inference in psychology and logic. A historical/epistemological perspective on the mentioned topic is treated.

Part 1: Psychology and decision-making: heuristics
- 1. Cognitive Biases
- 2. Homo heuristicus: why biased minds make better inferences
- 3. Models of Bounded Rationality
- 4. Models of Ecological Rationality
- 5. Social heuristics

Part 2: Logic and inference
- 1. Formal languages, syntax and semantic
- 2. Propositional language
- 3. Propositional Semantic and truth tables
- 4. Logical inference

Part 3: Psychology Logic and language
- 7. Psychologism and logic
- 8. The correspondence theory of truth
- 9. Sense and denotation (G. Frege)
- 10. Applications of heuristical decision making
- 11. Social Dilemmas

Bibliography

[1] Cherubini P., Giaretta P., Mazzocco A. Ragionamento: Psicologia e Logica, Manuali e Monografie di psicologia, Giunti, 2004.
[2] Fitting M., First-Order Logic and Automated Theorem Proving, Springer-Verlag New York, 2nd edition 2012.
[3] Hierro Pescador, J., Principios de filosofia del lenguaje, Alianza Editorial, Madrid 1989.
[4] Gigerenzer, G., Hertwig, R., Pachur, T. Heuristics. The Foundations of Adaptive Behavior, 2011.