Social Cognitive Bias: PSYCOLOQUYy Call for Commentary

[Stevan Harnad]

                Krueger: Social Cognitive Bias

    The target article whose abstract appears below has just appeared
    in PSYCOLOQUY, a refereed journal of Open Peer Commentary sponsored
    by the American Psychological Association. Qualified professional
    biobehavioral, neural or cognitive scientists are hereby invited to
    submit Open Peer Commentary on it. Please email for Instructions if
    you are not familiar with format or acceptance criteria for
    PSYCOLOQUY commentaries (all submissions are refereed).

    To submit articles and commentaries or to seek information:

    EMAIL: psyc at pucc.princeton.edu
    URL:   http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/psyc.html
           http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/psyc

    To retrieve the article:

http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?9.46
or
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/Psycoloquy/1998.volume.9/psyc.98.9.46.social-bias.1.krueger

    AUTHOR'S RATIONALE FOR SOLICITING COMMENTARY: My contention is that
    social psychological research has depicted social perception in an
    excessively negative light by relying too much on demonstrations of
    various irrational biases. Normative models of good judgment have
    been too restrictive, and the prevalent testing strategy has
    equated good judgment with the truth of a null hypothesis.
    Rejections of such null hypotheses have then been interpreted as
    evidence for bias. I am particularly interested in learning how
    psychologists and methodologists respond to the idea that the use
    of multiple theories and methods will improve our understanding of
    social perception. I realize that my proposal is incomplete because
    breaking the predominance of the single ruling inference strategy
    (Null Hypothesis Significance Testing) may make it harder to draw
    comparisons between studies. How can the field preserve its
    coherence, while abandoning its traditional ways?

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psycoloquy.98.9.46.social-bias.1.krueger                Fri Oct  2 1998
ISSN 1055-0143       (21 paragraphs, 41 references, 4 notes, 647 lines)
PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA)
                Copyright 1998 Joachim Krueger

                THE BET ON BIAS: A FOREGONE CONCLUSION?

                Joachim Krueger 
                Department of Psychology 
                Brown University, Box 1853
                Providence, RI 02912 
                USA
                Joachim_Krueger at Brown.edu
        http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Psychology/faculty/krueger.html

    ABSTRACT: Social psychology has painted a picture of human
    misbehavior and irrational thinking. For example, prominent social
    cognitive biases are said to distort consensus estimation, self
    perception, and causal attribution. The thesis of this target
    article is that the roots of this negativistic paradigm lie in the
    joint application of narrow normative theories and statistical
    testing methods designed to reject those theories. Suggestions for
    balancing the prevalent paradigm include (a) modifications to the
    ruling rituals of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing, (b)
    revisions of what is considered a normative response, and (c)
    increased emphasis on individual differences in judgment.

    KEYWORDS: Bayes' rule, bias, hypothesis testing, individual
    differences probability, rationality, significance testing, social
    cognition, statistical inference

    To retrieve the article:

http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?9.46

or

ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/Psycoloquy/1998.volume.9/psyc.98.9.46.social-bias.1.krueger