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Focus, repacking, and the judgment of grouped hypotheses
Author(s) -
Brenner Lyle,
Rottenstreich Yuval
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of behavioral decision making
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.136
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1099-0771
pISSN - 0894-3257
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-0771(199906)12:2<141::aid-bdm312>3.0.co;2-c
Subject(s) - singleton , focus (optics) , preference , psychology , differential (mechanical device) , econometrics , statistics , social psychology , mathematical economics , cognitive psychology , mathematics , pregnancy , genetics , physics , engineering , optics , biology , aerospace engineering
Previous research has found that judged probabilities of two complementary singleton hypotheses sum to one. However, there may be important differences between judgment of singleton and disjunctive hypotheses. We suggest that because of a general preference for singletons as the focus of judgment, disjunctions are more likely to be repacked into singletons when focal than when alternative. This prediction of differential repacking implies that a given disjunction will be perceived as less likely when focal. Thus, we predict that when disjunctions are under consideration, the sum of judged probabilities for two complementary hypotheses will be less than one. We observe this pattern in judgment of both probability and relative frequency, and for both externally‐generated and self‐generated hypotheses. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.