title: Causal superseding.
abstract: When agents violate norms, they are typically judged to be more of a cause of resulting outcomes. In this paper, we suggest that norm violations also affect the causality attributed to other agents, a phenomenon we refer to as "causal superseding." We propose and test a counterfactual reasoning model of this phenomenon in four experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 provide an initial demonstration of the causal superseding effect and distinguish it from previously studied effects. Experiment 3 shows that this causal superseding effect is dependent on a particular event structure, following a prediction of our counterfactual model. Experiment 4 demonstrates that causal superseding can occur with violations of non-moral norms. We propose a model of the superseding effect based on the idea of counterfactual sufficiency.
authors.affiliation: Yale University, United States. Electronic address: jonathan.kominsky@yale.edu.
authors.forename: Jonathan F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Kominsky
authors.affiliation: Yale University, United States.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gerstenberg
authors.affiliation: University College London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lagnado
authors.affiliation: Yale University, United States.
authors.forename: Joshua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Knobe
mesh_terms: D015984:Causality; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008960:Models, Psychological; D013850:Thinking
keywords: Causal reasoning; Counterfactuals; Morality; Superseding