Cognitive Activation
How much cognitive capacity is available and actually mobilized for analysis.
Anthropological Rationality Model · Theory v1.1
Understand your
epistemic mode.
ARM-3 examines not only how capable thinking is, but what it is used for: testing and revising a world model – or protecting it under pressure.
Research model with empirical points of connection
94 tasks in the current instrument v1.0
Clear separation of evidence, hypotheses, and model assumptions
ARM-3 Research · Pilot phase
Epistemic Control
Cognitive flexibility and metacognition shape how openly models are tested and corrected.
Model Commitment
Model Commitment and Model Revision Cost capture how much is at stake in a fundamental revision.
Pressure Dynamics
Neutral and threat conditions show whether an epistemic mode remains stable under ego, status, group, or identity pressure.
Three basic forms
Not three kinds of people.
Three uses of reason.
ARM-3 treats rationabile, rationale, and rationalizans as ideal-typical processing modes. The same person may shift between them depending on topic, pressure, and model commitment.
Basic types in detail →01
Activation
Animal rationabile
Capable of reason – but not reliably activated.
The cognitive capacity for examination is present, yet it may be mobilized only weakly because of situational, heuristic, or habitual processing.
02
Model correction
Animal rationale
Thinking primarily serves to improve one’s own model.
Evidence is examined, uncertainty is tolerated, and an existing belief remains revisable when sufficient counterevidence appears.
03
Model protection
Animal rationalizans
Thinking increasingly serves to defend an existing model.
The decisive issue is not low intelligence but the direction in which it is used: counterarguments can be analyzed in order to protect the preferred model.
Core hypothesis v1.1
Rationalization is not the opposite of thinking.
High cognitive activation can enable both rational model revision and highly elaborate rationalization. ARM-3 therefore separates cognitive activation from the epistemic direction in which cognition is used.
Conceptual
RP ∝ MC × MRC × ThreatCF × EMC
Not a validated psychometric equation, but a theoretical representation of the proposed relationships.
Dynamic model
Rationality as a state,
not a label.
ARM-3 does not model a fixed trait, but possible state transitions. The same person may respond epistemically differently when conditions change.
Counterevidence can change the existing model.
Revision becomes psychologically or socially more costly.
Cognitive resources may increasingly be deployed defensively.
State transitions instead of fixed typing
Methodology & model architecture →
Research Prototype
Transparent about evidence and limits.
ARM-3 connects established research fields with its own hypotheses. External evidence, theoretical derivations, and open validation questions are explicitly kept separate.
View research →
Established research fields
Motivated Reasoning · Belief Updating · Actively Open-Minded Thinking · Intellectual Humility
Original hypotheses
ARM-3 model assumptions are explicitly identified as a separate theoretical layer.
Limits made explicit
Research Prototype – not a clinical diagnostic instrument and currently not psychometrically normed.
Instrument v1.0
Test your epistemic mode.
94 tasks across three modules. Research Prototype, not psychometrically normed.