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Related Experiment Videos

Controlling for causally relevant third variables.

Adam S Goodie1, Cristina C Williams, C L Crooks

  • 1Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany. goodie@egon.psy.uga.edu

The Journal of General Psychology
|December 16, 2003
PubMed
Summary
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People control for perceived causal factors more when making judgments. This suggests causal relevance influences how we evaluate evidence, impacting our reasoning processes.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Causal Inference
  • Decision Making

Background:

  • Understanding how individuals make causal judgments is crucial in cognitive psychology.
  • Previous research suggests that people often struggle to properly control for confounding variables.
  • The role of perceived relevance in controlling for third variables remains an area needing further exploration.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the conditions under which individuals control for third variables in causal judgments.
  • To test the hypothesis that third variables are controlled for when they are perceived as causal.
  • To examine the impact of perceived causal relevance on causal conditionalizing.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments were conducted to assess causal judgments.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Experiment 1 involved participants predicting test performance based on information about a lucky garment, a test-preparation course, and staying up late.
  • Experiments 2 and 3 used a cover story involving flowers' blooming and the presentation/nonpresentation of liquids to control for alternative accounts.

    • Main Results:

    • In Experiment 1, a test-preparation course (perceived as more causally relevant) was controlled for more than a lucky garment (perceived as less causally relevant).
    • In Experiments 2 and 3, a liquid trained as causal was controlled for more in judging another liquid's effect than when it was trained as neutral.
    • Overall, stimuli perceived as causal were controlled for more when judging other stimuli.

    Conclusions:

    • The perceived causal relevance of a third variable significantly influences its control in causal judgments.
    • The findings support the hypothesis that perceived causal relevance is a key factor in causal conditionalizing.
    • The effect of perceived causal relevance on causal conditionalizing is both real and normatively reasonable.