Balancing Causes and Consequences: The Magnitude-Matching Principle in Explanations for Complex Social Events

Ebel-Lam, Anna; Fabrigar, Leandre R.; MacDonald, Tara K.; Jones, Sarah

doi:10.1080/01973533.2010.519245

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The current work also adds to the emerging literature on matching in causal relationships [37][38][39][40]. Much of this previous work has examined pure cause-and-effect relationships.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The concept of matching has precedent in the causal reasoning literature. Research has shown that individuals prefer causes and effects to match in terms of magnitude [37][38] and physical appearance [39], with this preference for matching holding true even when the cause has no diagnostic value in predicting the effect [40]. Additional work has also shown that individuals, even children as young as six years old, tend to match a machine's functional diversity to its inner complexity, with participants attributing a greater diversity of function as having been "caused" by greater complexity of parts [41].…”

Section: Complexity-matchingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Explanatory preferences for complexity matching

Lim

Oppenheimer

2020

PLoS ONE

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People are adept at generating and evaluating explanations for events around them. But what makes for a satisfying explanation? While some scholars argue that individuals find simple explanations to be more satisfying (Lombrozo, 2007), others argue that complex explanations are preferred (Zemla, et al. 2017). Uniting these perspectives, we posit that people believe a satisfying explanation should be as complex as the event being explainedwhat we term the complexity matching hypothesis. Thus, individuals will prefer simple explanations for simple events, and complex explanations for complex events. Four studies provide robust evidence for the complexity-matching hypothesis. In studies 1-3, participants read scenarios and then predicted the complexity of a satisfying explanation (Study 1), generated an explanation themselves (Study 2), and evaluated explanations (Study 3). Lastly, in Study 4, we explored a different manipulation of complexity to demonstrate robustness across paradigms. We end with a discussion of mechanisms that might underlie this preference-matching phenomenon.

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“…The current work also adds to the emerging literature on matching in causal relationships [37][38][39][40]. Much of this previous work has examined pure cause-and-effect relationships.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Complexity-matchingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explanatory preferences for complexity matching

Lim

Oppenheimer

2020

PLoS ONE

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“…This is also the case with explanations for medical phenomena. In one particular study, Ebel-Lam et al (2010) found that when subjects read about a disease outbreak that does not lead to deaths, they are less likely to believe that the outbreak was intended; by contrast, when another group of subjects read a story in which the outbreak does result in deaths, they are more likely to attribute it to a conspiracy. Piaget and Inhelder (2008) documented how children in preoperational stages rarely believe that accidents just happen.…”

Section: Cognitive Science Of Medical Conspiracy Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Medical conspiracy theories: cognitive science and implications for ethics

Andrade

2020

Med Health Care and Philos

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Although recent trends in politics and media make it appear that conspiracy theories are on the rise, in fact they have always been present, probably because they are sustained by natural dispositions of the human brain. This is also the case with medical conspiracy theories. This article reviews some of the most notorious health-related conspiracy theories. It then approaches the reasons why people believe these theories, using concepts from cognitive science. On the basis of that knowledge, the article makes normative proposals for public health officials and health workers as a whole, to deal with conspiracy theories, in order to preserve some of the fundamental principles of medical ethics.

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“…One often cited example is the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. Researchers have found that Kennedy’s death shocked the American public, with many citizens feeling depressed following his murder (Ebel-Lam et al , 2010; Freedman, 1984). Similarly, researchers found that the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin traumatized the Israeli population (Klingman, 2001; Zelig and Nachson, 2012).…”

Section: Assassination Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preventing successful assassination attacks by terrorists: an environmental criminology approach

Mandala

Freilich

2017

JCRPP

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use an environmental criminology and situational crime prevention (SCP) framework to study global assassinations carried out by terrorists. The authors set forth a series of hypotheses to explain successful and unsuccessful assassination incidents. Design/methodology/approach The authors use assassination data from the Global Terrorism Database from 1970 to 2014 to estimate a series binary logistic regression models. Findings Results indicate that various situational factors contribute to successful assassinations, such as target types, weapon types, total fatalities, and injuries. Practical implications These findings suggest that environmental criminology and SCP are valuable in developing prevention measures that thwart and disrupt attempted assassinations by terrorists. Originality/value Criminology has yet to apply environmental criminology and SCP to assassinations, a tactic often used by terrorists. This paper thus extends the existing assassination, terrorism, and criminology literature by applying this framework to assassinations performed by terrorists.

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Balancing Causes and Consequences: The Magnitude-Matching Principle in Explanations for Complex Social Events

Cited by 12 publications

References 20 publications

Explanatory preferences for complexity matching

Explanatory preferences for complexity matching

Medical conspiracy theories: cognitive science and implications for ethics

Preventing successful assassination attacks by terrorists: an environmental criminology approach

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