Consumers’ Abductive Inference Error as Cognitive Impairment

This study examines cognitive impairment, which is one of the results from social exclusion and leads to various cognitive deficits such as logical reasoning disorders. This study also investigates how cognitive errors called abductive inference error occur due to cognitive impairment. This study was performed with 81 college students. Participants were randomly assigned to a group who experienced social exclusion and a group who did not experience social exclusion. We analyzed how the degree of error of abductive inference differs according to the experience of social exclusion by t-test. The group who experienced social exclusion had a higher level of abductive inference error than the group who did not experience it. The abductive condition inference value of the group who experienced social exclusion was higher in the group with the deduction condition inference value of 90% than in the group with the deduction condition inference value of 10%, and the difference was also significant. This study extended the concepts of cognitive impairments, escape theory, and cognitive narrowing, which are used to explain addiction behavior to human cognitive bias. Also this study confirmed that social exclusion experience increased cognitive impairment and abductive inference error. Implications and future research directions are discussed and suggested.