Normality and actual causal strength

Abstract

Existing research suggests that people's judgments of actual causation can be influenced by the degree to which they regard certain events as normal. We develop an explanation for this phenomenon that draws on standard tools from the literature on graphical causal models and, in particular, on the idea of probabilistic sampling. Using these tools, we propose a new measure of actual causal strength. This measure accurately captures three effects of normality on causal judgment that have been observed in existing studies. More importantly, the measure predicts a new effect ("abnormal deflation"). Two studies show that people's judgments do, in fact, show this new effect. Taken together, the patterns of people's causal judgments thereby provide support for the proposed explanation.

Immoral Professors and Malfunctioning Tools: Counterfactual Relevance Accounts Explain the Effect of Norm Violations on Causal Selection

“…We excluded participants who did not answer both of the control questions correctly (127/603 or ~21%; Icard et al, excluded 54/480 or ~11%) and analyzed the remaining 476 participants' judgments. Mean ratings by question and condition are shown in Fig.…”

“…One possibility, argued for by CFR accounts, is that the differences in the relevance of the counterfactual alternatives in different conditions explains the differences in participants' causal judgments. Specifically, in conjunctive causal structures like the one focused on by Samland and Waldmann (), the more one focuses on counterfactual alternatives for a specific antecedent event, the more one's attention is drawn to the fact that the outcome depends on that specific event, and thus the more participants should regard that event as the cause of the subsequent outcome (for a more formal treatment, see Icard et al, ).…”

“…Most researchers take the impact of statistical norms on causal judgments to reveal part of the basic underlying processes that support causal reasoning (e.g., Alicke, Rose, & Bloom, ; Gerstenberg et al, ; Icard, Kominsky, & Knobe, ; Morris et al, , ; Samland & Waldmann, ). They differ, however, in whether they treat the impact of moral norms on causal judgments as arising from the same underlying processes or argue that it arises from a fundamentally different source.…”

“…The key idea of CFR accounts is that norm violations lead people to consider counterfactual alternatives that are more “normal” (Kahneman & Miller, ; Phillips & Knobe, ), and that people evaluate whether the outcome would still obtain in these counterfactual possibilities (Hitchcock & Knobe, ; Icard et al, ). Importantly, the content of the relevant counterfactual alternatives reflects the nature of the norm being violated.…”

The psychological representation of modality

“…In contrast to this approach (and in line with the modal representation view), a number of researchers have developed frameworks that account for the effect of morality and probability in a unified way (Bello, ; Blanchard & Schaffer, ; Halpern & Hitchcock, ; Icard, Kominsky & Knobe, ; Knobe & Szabó, ). While different accounts differ in the formalism they use to capture these effects, there are two central features that they share.…”