Confirming expectations in asymmetric and symmetric social hypothesis testing.

Rusconi, P, Sacchi, S, Toscano, A and Cherubini, P (2012) Confirming expectations in asymmetric and symmetric social hypothesis testing. Exp Psychol, 59 (5). pp. 243-250.

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Abstract

This article examines individuals' expectations in a social hypothesis testing task. Participants selected questions from a list to investigate the presence of personality traits in a target individual. They also identified the responses that they expected to receive and the likelihood of the expected responses. The results of two studies indicated that when people asked questions inquiring about the hypothesized traits that did not entail strong a priori beliefs, they expected to find evidence confirming the hypothesis under investigation. These confirming expectations were more pronounced for symmetric questions, in which the diagnosticity and frequency of the expected evidence did not conflict. When the search for information was asymmetric, confirming expectations were diminished, likely as a consequence of either the rareness or low diagnosticity of the hypothesis-confirming outcome. We also discuss the implications of these findings for confirmation bias.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions :	Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences > School of Psychology
Authors :	Name Email ORCID Rusconi, P Sacchi, S Toscano, A Cherubini, P
Date :	1 January 2012
DOI :	10.1027/1618-3169/a000149
Uncontrolled Keywords :	Adult, Conflict (Psychology), Culture, Female, Humans, Male, Personality, Psychometrics, Thinking
Related URLs :	Author
Additional Information :	Experimental Psychology, 59, (5), © 2012 by Hogrefe. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in Experimental Psychology. It is not the version of record and is therefore not suitable for citation.
Depositing User :	Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited :	23 Sep 2014 10:33
Last Modified :	31 Oct 2017 16:53
URI:	http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/id/eprint/805934

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