Primary error detection and minimization (PEDMIN) strategies in social cognition: A reinterpretation of confirmation bias phenomena.

1993/01/01 by James Friedrich · 1 citation
Decision Sciences · Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Artificial intelligence #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Computer science #Confirmation bias #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics #Epistemology #Heuristic #Heuristics #Normative #Premise #Psychology #Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment #Reinterpretation #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology #Test (biology)

paper · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.100.2.298

openalex publication_date 1993/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

A broad empirical literature demonstrates what has been termed a confirmation bias or positive test strategy heuristic in reasoning (Klayman & Ha, 1987), a potentially maladaptive pattern of data preferences that coexists with more normative preferences for highly diagnostic information (Skov & Sherman, 1986). A model is developed to account for these variations in test strategies, beginning with the premise that cognitive processes are adapted to reducing particularly costly errors rather than to detecting "truth" (Cosmides & Tooby, 1992). By specifying the information required to minimize various errors of primary concern, the model clarifies the adaptiveness of certain confirmatory preferences, identifies conditions under which such preferences should diminish, and outlines how error minimization goals might produce data preferences coincidentally consistent with normative prescriptions.

Citations

• Accountability: A Social Check on the Fundamental Attribution Error
• Protection motivation and self-efficacy: A revised theory of fear appeals and attitude change
• Things I have learned (so far).
• Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic.
• The case for motivated reasoning.
• Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence.
• Confirmatory and diagnosing strategies in social information gathering.
• Confirmation, disconfirmation, and information in hypothesis testing.
• Hypothesis-testing processes in social interaction.
• Diagnostic and confirmation strategies in trait hypothesis testing.
• Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health.

Cited by

• Confirmation bias [wikipedia]