Information About Inherent Features Is Highly Accessible: Support for an Inherence Heuristic in Explanation

Hussak, Larisa; Cimpian, Andrei

doi:10.1037/e524912015-312

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Importantly, the fact that the process of explaining relies on information that is easily retrieved from memory gives rise to certain commonalities in the content of the explanations generated. Memory is organized such that, when explaining an observation involving entity X , the information that is most easily activated usually consists of inherent , or constitutive, facts about X (e.g., Higgins, 1996; Hussak & Cimpian, 2014; Lewis, 1983; McRae, Cree, Seidenberg, & McNorgan, 2005; Weatherson & Marshall, 2014). For instance, a quick explanation for why the Mona Lisa is so popular might appeal exclusively to the inherent artistic qualities of the painting itself (e.g., the subject’s captivating smile).…”

Section: Characterizing the Explanatory Underpinnings Of System Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

An early-emerging explanatory heuristic promotes support for the status quo.

Hussak¹,

Cimpian²

2015

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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105

126

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People often view their sociopolitical systems as fair and natural despite indisputable biases in their structure. Current theories of this phenomenon trace its roots to a motivation to alleviate anxiety and uncertainty. Here, we propose a complementary cognitive pathway for these system-endorsing attitudes. Specifically, we propose that the fundamental mechanisms through which people explain the world around them may also be a source of such attitudes. These explanatory processes are inadvertently biased to yield inherent or internal facts as explanations for a wide variety of social and natural phenomena, including sociopolitical patterns (e.g., Why are some people rich? Because they are really smart). In turn, this bias toward inherent attributions makes it seem that the observations being explained (such as the societal status quo) are legitimate and thus worthy of support. Four studies with participants as young as 4 years of age provided correlational and experimental evidence for the hypothesized link between explanatory processes and support for the status quo. These findings suggest that the tendency to endorse existing sociopolitical arrangements emerges partly on a foundation laid early in life by a basic component of human cognition.

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Section: Characterizing the Explanatory Underpinnings Of System Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

An early-emerging explanatory heuristic promotes support for the status quo.

Hussak¹,

Cimpian²

2015

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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105

126

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Section: Explanation and Conservatismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This poses a challenge, however, because there are several resource-intensive operations that need to be performed while constructing an explanation (e.g., retrieving relevant factors from long-term memory, weighing these factors against one another in working memory, evaluating the plausibility of the selected answer). Due to these complexities, the explanations generated in everyday life often take shortcuts -for example, by relying on the first thing that comes to mind rather than performing an exhaustive memory search (Cimpian, 2015;Cimpian & Salomon, 2014a, 2014bHussak & Cimpian, 2014). This heuristic reliance on easily accessible information comes at a cost, though, insofar as it gives rise to a bias in the content of the explanations generated: When memory is queried about a certain entity, the information that's most easily accessible is often inherent information (Lewis, 1983;Weatherson & Marshall, 2014) -that is, information about the entity itself rather than its context, history, or relations with other entities (e.g., Higgins, 1996;Hussak & Cimpian, 2014;McRae, Cree, Seidenberg, & McNorgan, 2005).…”

Section: Explanation and Conservatismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to these complexities, the explanations generated in everyday life often take shortcuts -for example, by relying on the first thing that comes to mind rather than performing an exhaustive memory search (Cimpian, 2015;Cimpian & Salomon, 2014a, 2014bHussak & Cimpian, 2014). This heuristic reliance on easily accessible information comes at a cost, though, insofar as it gives rise to a bias in the content of the explanations generated: When memory is queried about a certain entity, the information that's most easily accessible is often inherent information (Lewis, 1983;Weatherson & Marshall, 2014) -that is, information about the entity itself rather than its context, history, or relations with other entities (e.g., Higgins, 1996;Hussak & Cimpian, 2014;McRae, Cree, Seidenberg, & McNorgan, 2005). As a result, people have a tendency to explain events and patterns in the world (e.g., why engagement rings typically have diamonds) as being due to the inherent features of the entities involved (e.g., diamonds are beautiful), overlooking non-inherent factors that are available in memory but less likely to be retrieved in the moment (e.g., marketing campaigns; Tworek & Cimpian, 2016).…”

Section: Explanation and Conservatismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Investigating the origins of political views: biases in explanation predict conservative attitudes in children and adults

Hussak

Cimpian

2017

Developmental Science

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We tested the hypothesis that political attitudes are influenced by an information-processing factor - namely, a bias in the content of everyday explanations. Because many societal phenomena are enormously complex, people's understanding of them often relies on heuristic shortcuts. For instance, when generating explanations for such phenomena (e.g., why does this group have low status?), people often rely on facts that they can retrieve easily from memory - facts that are skewed toward inherent or intrinsic features (e.g., this group is unintelligent). We hypothesized that this bias in the content of heuristic explanations leads to a tendency to (1) view socioeconomic stratification as acceptable and (2) prefer current societal arrangements to alternative ones, two hallmarks of conservative ideology. Moreover, since the inherence bias in explanation is present across development, we expected it to shape children's proto-political judgments as well. Three studies with adults and 4- to 8-year-old children (N = 784) provided support for these predictions: Not only did individual differences in reliance on inherent explanations uniquely predict endorsement of conservative views (particularly the stratification-supporting component; Study 1), but manipulations of this explanatory bias also had downstream consequences for political attitudes in both children and adults (Studies 2 and 3). This work contributes to our understanding of the origins of political attitudes.

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“…The fact that everyday explanations tend to be based on information that is easily retrieved has an important corollary: Any systematic biases in the content of the most accessible information are likely also to bias the explanations generated. A finding that bears on this argument is that when people retrieve information about an entity, the information that comes to mind first tends to concern the entity itself (i.e., inherent information) rather than its context, history, or relations with other entities (i.e., extrinsic information; e.g., Ashcraft, 1978;Hussak & Cimpian, 2014;McRae, Cree, Seidenberg, & McNorgan, 2005). For example, when thinking about roses, people may retrieve inherent facts, such as that roses have a beautiful look and a sweet smell.…”

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confidence: 99%

Why Do People Tend to Infer “Ought” From “Is”? The Role of Biases in Explanation

Tworek

Cimpian

2016

Psychol Sci

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People tend to judge what is typical as also good and appropriate-as what ought to be. What accounts for the prevalence of these judgments, given that their validity is at best uncertain? We hypothesized that the tendency to reason from "is" to "ought" is due in part to a systematic bias in people's (nonmoral) explanations, whereby regularities (e.g., giving roses on Valentine's Day) are explained predominantly via inherent or intrinsic facts (e.g., roses are beautiful). In turn, these inherence-biased explanations lead to value-laden downstream conclusions (e.g., it is good to give roses). Consistent with this proposal, results from five studies (N = 629 children and adults) suggested that, from an early age, the bias toward inherence in explanations fosters inferences that imbue observed reality with value. Given that explanations fundamentally determine how people understand the world, the bias toward inherence in these judgments is likely to exert substantial influence over sociomoral understanding.

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Information About Inherent Features Is Highly Accessible: Support for an Inherence Heuristic in Explanation

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

An early-emerging explanatory heuristic promotes support for the status quo.

An early-emerging explanatory heuristic promotes support for the status quo.

Investigating the origins of political views: biases in explanation predict conservative attitudes in children and adults

Why Do People Tend to Infer “Ought” From “Is”? The Role of Biases in Explanation

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