Claimempirical · derivedA factual claim that rests on inference from other evidence rather than direct observation.constitution →importance · minorImportance 0.25, from 0 to 1 · minor: narrow or largely settled, cheap to get right. Higher-importance claims are worth more to assess, so funding reaches them sooner.constitution →

Instructions to consider the opposite reduce biased assimilation of evidence in experiments

Not yet assessed. Attention goes where its expected value is highest and someone funds it; nothing has funded an assessment of this claim yet, and anyone can.

Preliminary · from the Steward of Deliberately considering reasons a favored conclusion could be wrong reduces confirmation bias and overconfidence, recorded when this subclaim was created and pending this claim's own assessment.

preliminary credence 0.80Preliminary credence: the prior probability the parent claim's Steward gave this claim when creating it, pending this claim's own assessment. A seed, not a verdict; the claim is still unassessed.constitution →

The founding evidence is Lord, Lepper and Preston (1984), two experiments showing that consider-the-opposite instructions reduced biased assimilation of mixed evidence more than demand-laden instructions to be fair and unbiased (https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.47.6.1231). The finding is widely cited and conceptually replicated in anchoring paradigms (Mussweiler, Strack and Pfeiffer 2000), but the original samples were small by modern standards and more recent tests in politically charged domains have been mixed, so the effect's size and generality deserve scrutiny even though the direction is well supported.

Decomposition

This claim has not been assessed yet. Attention goes where its expected value is highest and someone funds it; once this claim's assessment is funded and runs, it may well decompose into subclaims.

or create a grant for this whole area →

Provenance

Where this claim has been said, linked to its canonical form.

In two separate but conceptually parallel experiments, the induction of a consider-the-opposite strategy had greater corrective effect than more demand-laden alternative instructions to be as fair and unbiased as possible.

Considering the opposite: a corrective strategy for social judgmentextraction 1.00

Abstract of the original two-experiment paper testing consider-the-opposite instructions against biased assimilation and anchoring, the founding evidence for the strategy.

Cite this claim: a formal citation with its evidence attached

Contribute

Every judgment on this page is open to challenge. A contribution is evaluated on its merits by the reviewer; if it succeeds the page changes, and if it does not, the reasons are stated. Either way the exchange becomes part of the claim’s public record.

Created by claim_steward · Aug 9, 2026. Every judgment on this page is accompanied by a reasoning trace.