Is there really an omission effect?

Willemsen, Pascale; Reuter, Kevin

doi:10.1080/09515089.2016.1225194

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(28 reference statements)

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“…Spranca et al (1991) suggested that people's actions were judged as having stronger causal links to the outcome compared with inactions. Follow-up studies supported this idea (Henne et al, 2019;Kordes-de & Vaal, 1996;Willemsen & Reuter, 2016) with action being perceived as more intentional than inaction (Hayashi, 2015;Jamison et al, 2020;Kordes-de Vaal, 1996). A related explanation is about the role of information.…”

Section: Scopementioning

confidence: 91%

“…Theories, Mechanisms, Explanations, and Hypotheses Spranca et al (1991) were among the first to discuss possible explanations for the omission bias. The causal relevance hypothesis focuses on the different causal attributions in omission and commission (Willemsen & Reuter, 2016). Spranca et al (1991) suggested that people's actions were judged as having stronger causal links to the outcome compared with inactions.…”

Section: Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Action and Inaction in Moral Judgments and Decisions: Meta-Analysis of Omission Bias Omission-Commission Asymmetries

Yeung

Yay

Feldman

2021

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

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Omission bias is people’s tendency to evaluate harm done through omission as less morally wrong and less blameworthy than commission when there is harm. However, findings are inconsistent. We conducted a preregistered meta-analysis, with 21 samples (13 articles, 49 effects) on omission-commission asymmetries in judgments and decisions. We found an overall effect of g = 0.45, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.14, 0.77], with stronger effects for morality and blame than for decisions. Publication bias tests produced mixed results with some indication for publication bias, though effects persisted even after most publication bias adjustments. The small sample of studies included limited our ability to draw definite conclusions regarding moderators, with inconclusive findings when applying different models. After compensating for low power, we found indication for moderation by role responsibility, perspective (self vs. others), outcome type, and study design. We hope this meta-analysis will inspire research on this phenomenon and applications to real-life, especially given the raging pandemic. Materials, data, and code are available on https://osf.io/9fcqm/ .

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Section: Scopementioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

Action and Inaction in Moral Judgments and Decisions: Meta-Analysis of Omission Bias Omission-Commission Asymmetries

Yeung

Yay

Feldman

2021

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

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“…Generally, the action effect refers to a phenomenon whereby, across a range of scenarios, people judge that agents who perform an action played a greater role in causing the outcome than agents who did nothing at all (Cushman & Young, 2011;Walsh & Sloman, 2011;Willemsen & Reuter, 2016; for a review, see Feldman & Yay, 2018). Many researchers have found this difference in causal judgment (Cushman & Young, 2011;Walsh & Sloman, 2011), and some have explored and suggested potential moderators (Willemsen & Reuter, 2016).…”

Section: Explaining the Action Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this case, it seems less reasonable to claim that you received the free sample because you did not change your subscription status. In what we will refer to as the action effect for causal judgment, people consistently judge that actions like these are more causal than inactions (Cushman & Young, 2011;Feldman & Yay, 2018;Spranca, Minsk, & Baron, 1991;Walsh & Sloman, 2011;Willemsen & Reuter, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Counterfactual Explanation for the Action Effect

Henne¹,

Niemi²,

Pinillos³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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People’s causal judgments are susceptible to the action effect, whereby they judge actions to be more causal than inactions. We offer a new explanation for this effect, the counterfactual explanation: people judge actions to be more causal than inactions because they are more inclined to consider the counterfactual alternatives to actions than to consider counterfactual alternatives to inactions. Experiment 1a conceptually replicates the original action effect for causal judgments. Experiment 1b confirms a novel prediction of the new explanation, the reverse action effect, in which people judge inactions to be more causal than actions in overdetermination cases. Experiment 2 directly compares the two effects in joint-causation and overdetermination scenarios and conceptually replicates them with new scenarios. Taken together, these studies provide support for the new counterfactual explanation for the action effect in causal judgment.

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“…Second, norms can also be injunctive (Alicke, 1992;Knobe & Fraser, 2008;Kominsky, Phillips, Gerstenberg, Lagnado, & Knobe, 2015;Reuter, Kirfel, van Riel, & Barlassina, 2014;Sytsma et al, 2012;Willemsen & Reuter, 2016). Injunctive norms include both prescriptive norms, which tell people what they should do, and proscriptive norms, telling people what they should not do.…”

Section: Norms and Their Effects On Causal Judgementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent empirical work on the relationship between causal judgements and norms

Willemsen

Kirfel

2018

Philosophy Compass

Self Cite

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It has recently been argued that normative considerations play an important role in causal cognition. For instance, when an agent violates a moral rule and thereby produces a negative outcome, she will be judged to be much more of a cause of the outcome, compared to someone who performed the same action but did not violate a norm. While there is a substantial amount of evidence reporting these effects, it is still a matter of debate how this evidence is to be interpreted. In this paper, we engage with the three most influential classes of explanations, namely, (a) the Norm-Sensitive Cognitive Process View, (b) the Normative Concept View, and (c) the Pragmatics View. We will outline how these theories explain the empirical results and in what ways they differ. We conclude with a reflection on how well these strategies do overall and what questions they still leave unanswered.

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Is there really an omission effect?

Abstract: The omission effect, first described by Spranca et al. (1991), has been extensively studied in the proceeding decades and repeatedly confirmed (Cushman et al., 2012)

Cited by 17 publications

References 21 publications

Action and Inaction in Moral Judgments and Decisions: Meta-Analysis of Omission Bias Omission-Commission Asymmetries

Action and Inaction in Moral Judgments and Decisions: Meta-Analysis of Omission Bias Omission-Commission Asymmetries

A Counterfactual Explanation for the Action Effect

Recent empirical work on the relationship between causal judgements and norms

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