The effect of abductive reasoning on concept selection decisions

•Examines how the form of logical reasoning interacts with design concept selection decisions.•Develops a coding scheme to analyse deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning.•Under abductive reasoning manipulation, individuals are more likely to accept concepts.•Under deductive reasoning manipulation, individuals are more likely to reject concepts.•Abductive reasoning plays significant role in concept generation and selection.

This study examines the effect of the form of logical reasoning on concept selection decisions. An experiment was conducted with members of a committee called upon to decide whether or not to invest in new product concepts. Under an abductive reasoning frame manipulation, which induced an inclination toward a form of logical reasoning that introduces hypotheses to explain given observations, individuals were more likely to accept concepts whereas under a deductive reasoning manipulation they were more likely to reject concepts. We recommend that when committees aim to increase the likelihood of design concepts being accepted, decision makers should employ innovative abduction to think creatively about new ways to frame the proposed concepts and to explore new working principles underpinning them.