Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Personal Choice and Fate Attributions01:19

Personal Choice and Fate Attributions

Some individuals interpret life events as a consequence of their personal choices and actions, while others believe that outcomes are dictated by fate or destiny. This divergence in perspective has been examined in psychological and cross-cultural studies, particularly in relation to religious faith and cultural beliefs about causality.Fate and Personal ResponsibilityPeople who emphasize personal responsibility view events as direct consequences of their decisions. For instance, breaking a leg...
Fundamental Attribution Error01:14

Fundamental Attribution Error

According to some social psychologists, people tend to overemphasize internal factors as explanations—or attributions—for the behavior of other people. They tend to assume that the behavior of another person is a trait of that person, and to underestimate the power of the situation on the behavior of others. They tend to fail to recognize when the behavior of another is due to situational variables, and thus to the person’s state. This erroneous assumption is called the fundamental attribution...
Attribution01:26

Attribution

In social interactions, individuals frequently seek to understand the motivations and causes behind others' behaviors. This fundamental aspect of social perception, known as attribution, plays a crucial role in shaping interpersonal relationships and guiding future actions. Attribution refers to the cognitive process through which people infer the reasons behind others' behaviors, allowing them to assess character traits, intentions, and situational influences.Attribution Theory and Its...
Cause and Effect01:53

Cause and Effect

While variables are sometimes correlated because one does cause the other, it could also be that some other factor, a confounding variable, is actually causing the systematic movement in our variables of interest. For instance, as sales in ice cream increase, so does the overall rate of crime. Is it possible that indulging in your favorite flavor of ice cream could send you on a crime spree? Or, after committing crime do you think you might decide to treat yourself to a cone?
Purposive Learning01:22

Purposive Learning

E. C. Tolman emphasized the purposiveness of behavior — the idea that much of our behavior is goal-directed. For instance, employees who aim for a promotion work diligently to meet their targets. Tolman argued that when classical conditioning and operant conditioning occur, the organism acquires certain expectations. In classical conditioning, a child might fear a dog because they expect it to bite. In operant conditioning, a person might consistently work overtime because they expect a bonus...
Attribution Theory00:56

Attribution Theory

Behavior is a product of both the situation (e.g., cultural influences, social roles, and the presence of bystanders) and of the person (e.g., personality characteristics). Subfields of psychology tend to focus on one influence or behavior over others. Situationism is the view that our behavior and actions are determined by our immediate environment and surroundings. In contrast, dispositionism holds that our behavior is determined by internal factors (Heider, 1958). An internal factor is an...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Factive mindreading reflects the optimal use of limited cognitive resources.

Proceedings. Biological sciences·2026
Same author

Plural Causes.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2026
Same author

Who knows what? Bayesian competence inference guides knowledge attribution and information search.

Cognition·2026
Same author

Intention judgments are not a reliable measure of intuitive preferences.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2025
Same author

A counterfactual explanation for recency effects in double prevention scenarios: Commentary on Thanawala and Erb (2024).

Cognition·2025
Same author

Lossy encoding of distributions in judgment under uncertainty.

Cognitive psychology·2025
Same journal

Incipient Constituents: Phonesthemes Facilitate Word Processing in English.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2026
Same journal

Tracking Visual Statistical Learning with Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials: Effects of Exemplar and Category Information.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2026
Same journal

Expectations of Reciprocal Generosity Are Specific to Equal Relationships.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2026
Same journal

Resolving the Vagueness of Quantifiers With Explicit Expectations.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2026
Same journal

Where You Look Is What You Get: Individual Fixation Height Predicts Biases in Face Perception.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2026
Same journal

Response Time as a Proxy for Decision Confidence: Insights From Type-2 ROC Analysis.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
06:45

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

Luck and Intentional Action: A Causal Account.

Tadeg Quillien1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.

Open Mind : Discoveries in Cognitive Science
|July 3, 2026
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

People judge actions as intentional only when there is a strong causal link between desire and outcome. This research explores the folk concept of intentional action and its connection to causality.

Keywords:
causationconceptsintentional actionlucktheory of mind

More Related Videos

Virtual Hand with Ambiguous Movement between the Self and Other Origin: Sense of Ownership and 'Other-Produced' Agency
08:01

Virtual Hand with Ambiguous Movement between the Self and Other Origin: Sense of Ownership and 'Other-Produced' Agency

Published on: October 28, 2020

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients
05:48

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients

Published on: June 12, 2020

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
06:45

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

Virtual Hand with Ambiguous Movement between the Self and Other Origin: Sense of Ownership and 'Other-Produced' Agency
08:01

Virtual Hand with Ambiguous Movement between the Self and Other Origin: Sense of Ownership and 'Other-Produced' Agency

Published on: October 28, 2020

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients
05:48

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients

Published on: June 12, 2020

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Social Psychology

Background:

  • The folk concept of intentional action is complex, especially in cases with low probability of success.
  • Previous research has identified intricate patterns in human intuitions regarding intentionality in chance-based scenarios.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose and test a causal theory explaining judgments of intentional action.
  • To investigate the role of the causal link between an agent's desire and the outcome in determining intentionality.

Main Methods:

  • Examined intuitions about intentional action in scenarios involving varying degrees of chance.
  • Compared intentionality judgments with causal judgments linking desire to outcome.
  • Assessed the influence of causal factors versus other proposed explanations for the 'luck effect' in intentionality.

Main Results:

  • People perceive weak causal links between desire and outcome when success is left to chance, leading to lower intentionality judgments.
  • Denial of intentionality in lucky outcomes correlates with denial that the outcome resulted from the agent's desire.
  • Causal judgments were found to be more influential on intentionality judgments than other previously suggested factors.

Conclusions:

  • A strong causal connection between an agent's desire and the resulting outcome is a critical element of the folk concept of intentional action.
  • The study supports a causal theory of intentionality, emphasizing the importance of robust causal links over mere desire for an outcome.