# Does the Cognitive Reflection Test Work with Chinese College Students? Evidence from a Time-Limited Study

## TL;DR

This study tests whether the Cognitive Reflection Test works for Chinese college students by comparing online and offline results under time pressure.

## Contribution

The study confirms the CRT's validity for Chinese students and shows time pressure effectively identifies logical thinkers.

## Key findings

- Chinese students had highest CRT accuracy in offline tests.
- CRT's intuitive conflict problems apply to Chinese students under time pressure.
- Time pressure is effective for identifying strong logical reasoning ability.

## Abstract

The cognitive reflection test (CRT) is an experiment task commonly used in Western countries to test intuitive and analytical thinking styles. However, the validity of this task for Chinese participants has not been explored. Therefore, this study recruited Chinese college students to finish CRT tasks with various experimental designs. To gauge the accuracy of the CRT tasks, 438 Chinese college students first completed online questionnaires. Participants were then invited to participate in an offline laboratory with the same experimental settings. Finally, time pressure was used to strictly control intuition and analytical thinking to explore the performance of Chinese college students on CRT tasks. The results show that of the three experiments, Chinese college students had the highest accuracy in the offline test, and the CRT’s intuitive conflict problem still applies to Chinese students under the time-limited condition. This study demonstrates the validity of the CRT in China and proves that time pressure is an effective method for identifying individuals with strong logic ability.