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Confirmation Bias in a Simulated Research Environment: An Experimental Study of Scientific Inference
Abstract
Numerous authors (e.g., Popper, 1959) argue that scientists should try to falsify rather than confirm theories. However, recent empirical work (Wason and Johnson-Laird, 1972) suggests the existence of a confirmation bias, at least on abstract problems. Using a more realistic, computer controlled environment modeled after a real research setting, subjects in this study first formulated hypotheses about the laws governing events occurring in the environment. They then chose between pairs of environments in which they could: (I) make observations which would probably confirm these hypotheses, or (2) test alternative hypotheses. Strong evidence for a confirmation bias involving failure to choose environments allowing tests of alternative hypotheses was found. However, when subjects did obtain explicit falsifying information, they used this information to reject incorrect hypotheses.
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Citations
Cited by
Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises
Nickerson, R. S. (1998) · Review of General Psychology · doi:10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175 · Cited by 7,267
Confirmation, disconfirmation, and information in hypothesis testing
Klayman, J., & Ha, Y.-W. (1987) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.94.2.211 · Cited by 2,094
Burger, B., Maffettone, P. M., Gusev, V. V., Aitchison, C. M., Bai, Y., Wang, X., Li, X., Alston, B. M., Li, B., Clowes, R., et al. (2020) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2442-2 · Cited by 1,516
Chinn, C. A., & Brewer, W. F. (1993) · Review of Educational Research · doi:10.3102/00346543063001001 · Cited by 1,393
Epistemologically authentic inquiry in schools: A theoretical framework for evaluating inquiry tasks
Chinn, C. A., & Malhotra, B. A. (2002) · Science Education · doi:10.1002/sce.10001 · Cited by 1,302
Metadata
- Authors
- Mynatt, C. R., Doherty, M. E., & Tweney, R. D.
- Venue
- Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1977-02
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 85-95
- ISSN
- 0033-555X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2115704439
- Cited by
- 513
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 1.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Mynatt, C. R., Doherty, M. E., & Tweney, R. D. (1977). Confirmation Bias in a Simulated Research Environment: An Experimental Study of Scientific Inference. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335557743000053
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
