Explanations and information search: Inductive and hypothesis‐testing approaches to arriving at an explanation

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Abstract
This paper reports three studies that are concerned with the processes involved in arriving at an explanation. In contrast with the essentially inductivist view that people arrive at attributions through an analysis of covariation information about consensus, consistency and distinctiveness, an alternative hypothesis‐testing approach to the process is suggested. This view implies that people usually have hypotheses about why an event occurred and that, rather than seek covariation information, they seek specific information which enables them to disambiguate their hypotheses. In the first two studies subjects were presented with vignettes and instructed to write down what information they would like to have in order to explain the event described. In the third study, similar vignettes were presented and ratings of the importance of different types of information was elicited. The results of all three studies support the hypothesis‐testing model.

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