Where did 1850 happen first - In America or in Europe? A cognitive account for a historical bias

Avital Moshinsky, Maya Bar-Hillel*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

A professor of history at The Hebrew University noted that his students were often surprised to learn that some event in America happened at about the same lime as another in Europe, because the American event seemed to them to have happened more recently. We confirmed the validity of this anecdotal observation experimentally, and offer an explanation. We discuss how this bias may be an effect of judgment, rather than memory. We then show experimentally that students like those who demonstrated the bias regarded America as the New World, as opposed to Europe's Old World. Our theoretical account, based on judgment by representativeness, posits that if one category is deemed more X than another (e.g., American history is deemed more "recent" than European history), then its members will be judged more X than members of the other, ceteris paribus. Hence, an American historical event will appear more recent than a contemporaneous European event.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)20-26
Number of pages7
JournalPsychological Science
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2002

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