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ERIC Number: EJ742913
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Oct
Pages: 18
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0749-596X
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Inverse Conjunction Fallacy
Jonsson, Martin L.; Hampton, James A.
Journal of Memory and Language, v55 n3 p317-334 Oct 2006
If people believe that some property is true of all members of a class such as sofas, then they should also believe that the same property is true of all members of a conjunctively defined subset of that class such as uncomfortable handmade sofas. A series of experiments demonstrated a failure to observe this constraint, leading to what is termed the "inverse conjunction fallacy." Not only did people often express a belief in the more general statement but not in the more specific, but also when they accepted both beliefs, they were inclined to give greater confidence to the more general. It is argued that this effect underlies a number of other demonstrations of fallacious reasoning, particularly in category-based induction. Alternative accounts of the phenomenon are evaluated, and it is concluded that the effect is best interpreted in terms of intensional reasoning [Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1983). "Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: the conjunction fallacy in probability judgment." "Psychological Review," 90, 293-315.].
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A