Hypothesis testing and the perception of diagnosticity

Two different views of social hypothesis testing have been put forth. (1) A poorly calibrated process dominated by biases toward hypothesis confirmati on.. (2) Rational decision making where a diagnosing strategy prevails. By recognizing the similarity between the standard hypothesis-testing situatio n and the 2 X 2 covariation paradigm, we conclude that neither of these vie ws is necessarily correct. In particular. we demonstrate that use of a diag nosing strategy is moderated by the presentation format such that sequentia lly presented information is mush less likely to induce a diagnosing strate gy than is a tabular presentation. In addition, when a diagnosing strategy is separated from a simpler land often indistinguishable) hypothesis-testin g rule, this simpler rule is strongly preferred. Thus, the apparent dominan ce of a diagnosing strategy in social hypothesis testing may be due, in par t, to a favorable presentation format and to the use of a nondiagnosing str ategy that is generally indistinguishable from the use of diagnosticity. Re sults indicate the advantages of a stronger integration between the hypothe sis testing and the covariation literatures. (C) 2001 Academic Press.