Selecting explanations from causal chains: Do statistical principles explain preferences for voluntary causes?

Abstract

We investigate whether people prefer voluntary causes to physical causes in unfolding causal chains and whether statistical (covariation, sufficiency) principles can predict how people select explanations. Experiment 1 shows that while people tend to prefer a proximal (more recent) cause in chains of unfolding physical events, causality is traced through the proximal cause to an underlying distal (less recent) cause when that cause is a human action. Experiment 2 shows that causal preference is more strongly correlated with judgements of sufficiency and conditionalised sufficiency than with covariation or conditionalised covariation. In addition, sufficiency judgements are partial mediators of the effect of type of distal cause (voluntary or physical) on causal preference. The preference for voluntary causes to physical causes corroborates findings from social psychology, cognitive neuroscience and jurisprudence that emphasise the primacy of intentions in causal attribution processes.

When deserving translates into causing: The effect of cognitive load on immanent justice reasoning

“…Further, future research should establish that the present findings generalize when causal attributions are probed differently than in the current study (although previous research on causal attribution gives ground for optimism with respect to the current assessment of causal attribution, e.g., Hilton, McClure & Sutton, 2010;McClure et al, 2007). For example, it is possible to ask participants to rate the extent to which outcomes were "caused by," rather than the "result of," a person's prior conduct.…”

Spontaneous goal inferences are often inferred faster than spontaneous trait inferences

“…Although revenge is not an admirable motive, it is more socially accepted than personal gain, so that the player will be seen as less morally corrupt when the aggressive move was motived by revenge rather than personal gain. As this example shows, it are not so much the situational circumstances that shape the trait inference, but rather the inferred goals and motives (see also Hilton, McClure, & Sutton, 2010). This seems to indicate that earlier impression theories that take into account only (a) behavioral cues and (b) situational constraints in forming a trait impression (e.g., Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988;Trope, 1986) are insufficient to explain trait attributions drawn from intentional (or goal-directed) behavior.…”

Acting knowingly: effects of the agent's awareness of an opportunity on causal attributions

“…Previous research has suggested that observers are more likely to perceive voluntary actions as causes than physical events (Hilton, McClure, & Sutton, 2010;Lagnado & Channon, 2008). For example, McClure et al (2007) found that voluntary actions were likely to be judged more causal than physical events in both the distal and proximal positions of opportunity chains, where the occurrence of an initial event (distal cause) enables a second event (proximal cause) to produce an effect.…”