According to the conjunction rule of probability theory, a conjunction of events cannot be more probable than either conjunct. However, participants often violate this rule in experimental settings, thus committing the conjunction fallacy. Why do participants commit this fallacy? One hypothesis suggests that participants interpret a task-critical statement designating the event A as designating the event A&notB. If so, participants do not commit the conjunction fallacy. Another hypothesis suggests that participants fail to take task-relevant relations of set inclusion into account when judging probabilities. Both hypotheses were tested in an experiment utilizing a between-subjects design with 145 participants. The results, analyzed using Bayes factors, provide evidence for the null hypothesis in both cases, thus suggesting that neither hypothesis explains the fallacy. However, the unexpectedly low prevalence of the fallacy in the baseline group may have masked the true effects of the manipulations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-149346 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Pagin, Amos |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Psykologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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