Judging interevent relations: from cause to effect and from effect to cause.
Stimulus competition was studied in college students' correlational judgments in a medical decision-making setting. In accord with prior findings, subjects making cause-to-effect (predictive) judgments discounted a stimulus event that was moderately correlated with a target event when rival stimuli were more highly correlated with the effect. However, subjects making effect-to-cause (diagnostic) judgments were not at all disposed to discount a stimulus event which was moderately correlated with a target event when rival stimuli were more highly correlated with the cause. The theoretical implications of these results are considered in connection with associative and mentalistic models of causal attribution.
Van Hamme
L J
LJ
University of Iowa, Iowa City 52242.
Kao
S F
SF
Wasserman
E A
EA
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015984:Causality; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male