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On the Failure to Eliminate Hypotheses in a Conceptual Task
Abstract
This investigation examines the extent to which intelligent young adults seek (i) confirming evidence alone (enumerative induction) or (ii) confirming and discontinuing evidence (eliminative induction), in order to draw conclusions in a simple conceptual task. The experiment is designed so that use of confirming evidence alone will almost certainly lead to erroneous conclusions because (i) the correct concept is entailed by many more obvious ones, and (ii) the universe of possible instances (numbers) is infinite. Six out of 29 subjects reached the correct conclusion without previous incorrect ones, 13 reached one incorrect conclusion, nine reached two or more incorrect conclusions, and one reached no conclusion. The results showed that those subjects, who reached two or more incorrect conclusions, were unable, or unwilling to test their hypotheses. The implications are discussed in relation to scientific thinking.
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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
Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: The conjunction fallacy in probability judgment.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1983) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.90.4.293 · Cited by 3,991
Representativeness revisited: Attribute substitution in intuitive judgment.
Kahneman, D., & Frederick, S. (2002) · Heuristics and Biases · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511808098.004 · Cited by 3,476
Slovic, P., Finucane, M., Peters, E., & MacGregor, D. G. (2002) · Heuristics and Biases · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511808098.025 · Cited by 2,349
“Clinical versus Actuarial Judgment.”
Dawes, R. M., Faust, D., & Meehl, P. E. (1989) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.2648573 · Cited by 2,298
Metadata
- Authors
- Wason, P. C.
- Venue
- Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1960-07
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 129-140
- ISSN
- 0033-555X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1986776260
- Cited by
- 2,098
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 28.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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