Diagnosticity

A decision situation is said to be diagnostic if it provides better evidence for one hypothesis than for others.

Psuedo-diagnosticity

Of the quality of information attended to or selected by actors in the (mistaken) belief that it is diagnostic when the information is of a kind which cannot be so in the context of the particular hypotheses to be decided between – a phenomenon which seems to be underlied by, or at least closely-related to, people’s tendency to retain an initial – and oft-times favoured – hypothesis (congruence), together with their proclivity to attempt to confirm rather than disconfirm hypotheses (Confirmation bias).

 (see also: scientific approach, non-occurrence neglect)

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