When Falsification is the Only Path to Truth

Abstract

Can people consistently attempt to falsify, that is, search for\nrefuting evidence, when testing the truth of hypotheses?\nExperimental evidence indicates that people tend to search for\nconfirming evidence. We report two novel experiments that\nshow that people can consistently falsify when it is the only\nhelpful strategy. Experiment 1 showed that participants\nreadily falsified somebody else?s hypothesis. Their task was\nto test a hypothesis belonging to an `imaginary participant?\nand they knew it was a low quality hypothesis. Experiment 2\nshowed that participants were able to falsify a low quality\nhypothesis belonging to an imaginary participant more readily\nthan their own low quality hypothesis. The results have\nimportant implications for theories of hypothesis testing and\nhuman rationality.

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