Neglect of alternative causes in predictive but not diagnostic reasoning.
People are renowned for their failure to consider alternative hypotheses. We compare neglect of alternative causes when people make predictive versus diagnostic probability judgments. One study with medical professionals reasoning about psychopathology and two with undergraduates reasoning about goals and actions or about causal transmission yielded the same results: neglect of alternative causes when reasoning from cause to effect but not when reasoning from effect to cause. The findings suggest that framing a problem as a diagnostic-likelihood judgment can reduce bias.
Fernbach
Philip M
PM
Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, Box 1978, Providence, RI 02912, USA. philip_fernbach@brown.edu
Darlow
Adam
A
Sloman
Steven A
SA
D015984:Causality; D003657:Decision Making; D003933:Diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008297:Male; D011337:Probability Learning; D011340:Problem Solving; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology