@inproceedings{89f2d424c29f422e9acf8b8b9d1191cd,
title = "Stable Causal Relationships are Better Causal Relationships",
abstract = "We report two experiments investigating whether people's judgments about causal relationships are sensitive to the robustness or stability of such relationships across a wide range of background circumstances. We demonstrate that people prefer stable causal relationships even when overall causal strength is held constant, and we show that this effect is unlikely to be driven by a causal generalization's actual scope of application. This documents a previously unacknowledged factor that shapes people's causal reasoning.",
keywords = "background conditions, causality, explanation, moderating variables, stability",
author = "Nadya Vasilyeva and Thomas Blanchard and Tania Lombrozo",
note = "Funding Information: Fifth, how does the stability of a relationship across a range of circumstances relate to the degree of guidance it provides? Consider again the causal relationship between eating yonas and getting sore antennas in the case where it holds only in one background circumstance. One way to alleviate thisnsitabilitysioteplicixtlyubildhitsabgcrounkd circumstance into the relationship: “For zelmos who drink salty water, eating yonas causes sore antennas.” This qualified claim seems better than the bare claim that eating yonas causes sore antennas – not because it applies to a wider range of possible circumstances per se, but because it is more “guiding”: by flagging the circumstance under which the relationship holds, it provides a better sense of when the relevant causal relationship can be used for prediction and control, and is therefore exportable in the sense that it contains conditions for application, whether or not those conditions hold widely. Thus one question is whether people are sensitive to considerations of guidance when assessing unstable relationships, and how guidance (achieved by building in background circumstances) differs fromofferinganexplanationorcausalclaim iwth het ab lineg n conditions instead identified as additional, interacting causes. The roles of stability and guidance in causal ascription and explanation are ripe for further investigation. Acknowledgments This work was supported by the Varieties of Understanding Project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. References Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016 Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016. All rights reserved.; 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016 ; Conference date: 10-08-2016 Through 13-08-2016",
year = "2016",
language = "English (US)",
series = "Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016",
publisher = "The Cognitive Science Society",
pages = "2663--2668",
editor = "Anna Papafragou and Daniel Grodner and Daniel Mirman and Trueswell, {John C.}",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016",
}