Self-selection bias in hypothesis comparison
Abstract
Here we investigated whether, given equivalent supporting evidence, we judge self-selected hypotheses differently from those selected by an external source. On each trial of a probabilistic reasoning task requiring no retrieval from memory, participants rated the probability of a focal hypothesis, relative to two alternatives. The focal hypothesis was either selected by the participant or by a computer. In four experiments, self-selected focal hypotheses were judged to be more probable than externally selected ones, despite equivalent supporting evidence. This self-selection bias was independent of level of difficulty in selecting the focal hypothesis (cognitive effort) and of whether evidence was gradually accumulated or all presented instantaneously. These results suggest that the cognitive operations involved in selecting a hypothesis lead to assignment of higher probability to that hypothesis, and that this effect is independent of hypothesis selection difficulty and of the rate of evidence accumulation.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
Volume (Year): 118 (2012)
Issue (Month): 2 ()
Pages: 216-225
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp
Related research
Keywords: Judgment; Probabilistic reasoning; Decision-making; Overconfidence; Choice; Option fixation; Hypothesis generation;References
No references listed on IDEASYou can help add them by filling out this form.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:118:y:2012:i:2:p:216-225For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wendy Shamier).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.