Normality and actual causal strength

Existing research suggests that people’s judgments of actual causation can be influenced by the degree to which they regard certain events as normal. We develop an explanation for this phenomenon that draws on standard tools from the literature on graphical causal models and, in particular, on the i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition 2017-04, Vol.161, p.80-93
Main Authors: Icard, Thomas F., Kominsky, Jonathan F., Knobe, Joshua
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actual causation
Bayes nets
Bayes Theorem
Causal models
Causal reasoning
Causality
Cognition & reasoning
Counterfactuals
Deflation
Humans
Imagination
Judgment
Models, Psychological
Normality
Sampling
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Summary:Existing research suggests that people’s judgments of actual causation can be influenced by the degree to which they regard certain events as normal. We develop an explanation for this phenomenon that draws on standard tools from the literature on graphical causal models and, in particular, on the idea of probabilistic sampling. Using these tools, we propose a new measure of actual causal strength. This measure accurately captures three effects of normality on causal judgment that have been observed in existing studies. More importantly, the measure predicts a new effect (“abnormal deflation”). Two studies show that people’s judgments do, in fact, show this new effect. Taken together, the patterns of people’s causal judgments thereby provide support for the proposed explanation.
ISSN:0010-0277
1873-7838
DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2017.01.010