Positive and negative implications of the causal illusion

Abstract

The human cognitive system is fine-tuned to detect patterns in the environment with the aim of predicting important outcomes and, eventually, to optimize behavior. Built under the logic of the least-costly mistake, this system has evolved biases to not overlook any meaningful pattern, even if this means that some false alarms will occur, as in the case of when we detect a causal link between two events that are actually unrelated (i.e., a causal illusion). In this review, we examine the positive and negative implications of causal illusions, emphasizing emotional aspects (i.e., causal illusions are negatively associated with negative mood and depression) and practical, health-related issues (i.e., causal illusions might underlie pseudoscientific beliefs, leading to dangerous decisions). Finally, we describe several ways to obtain control over causal illusions, so that we could be able to produce them when they are beneficial and avoid them when they are harmful.

Behavior and illusions: a model to study superstition in a participant replacement experiment

“…Elucidation of the illusion of control that emphasizes the role of coincidences between behavior and environmental changes is an important step toward providing a basic background for understanding behavioral and learning mechanisms that are related to the origins of false beliefs (Blanco, 2017;Blanco et al, 2009Blanco et al, , 2011Blanco et al, , 2012Blanco et al, , 2013Matute, 1996;Matute et al, 2007). The present data support this approach to better understand the general notion of the illusion of control.…”

“…Brown (1988, 1994), for example, suggested that the illusion of control and other biases toward the detection of causality protects people against situations that can potentially be a source of stress, depression, or discouragement. Moreover, the question of illusion of control has also been approached from the perspective of the psychology of learning (e.g., Blanco, 2017;Matute, 1996). This position is strongly supported by accumulating evidence that higher levels of activity of one participant are positively correlated with higher estimates of control in the context of noncontingent outcomes (Blanco & Matute, 2015;Blanco, Matute, & Vadillo, 2009Matute, Vadillo, Vegas, & Blanco, 2007).…”

“…This effect was called the illusion of control and has been extensively studied in experimental psychology (for review, see Blanco, 2017). Participants usually had to estimate how much they thought they had control over a situation when they actually had no real or low control (e.g., Alloy & Abramson, 1979;Fast, Gruenfeld, Sivanathan, & Galinsky, 2009;Harris & Osman, 2012;Matute, 1995).…”

Causal illusions in children when the outcome is frequent

“…On many occasions biased perceptions of causality may be innocuous, but they may also entail both positive and negative consequences, depending on the situation (see [ 19 ] for a recent review of this topic). For example, some superstitions could be regarded, to a certain extent, as adaptive behaviors because they may contribute towards promoting an unrealistic feeling of control (i.e.…”

“…Recent research has pointed out the learned nature of this illusion [ 40 ], which has been explained as the result of a visual processing strategy based on the probability distributions of 3D-objects in the real world, that is, as a consequence of experience and acquired knowledge rather than an inborn strategy. The parallel between causal illusions and visual illusions (such as the Muller-Lyer) has been acknowledged in the past [ 12 , 19 ]; and it is possible that causal illusions—like visual illusions—also develop during our life as opposed to being an innate bias, which is another reason to investigate them. In line with these thoughts, research has shown that previous knowledge may act as a source of bias in causal assessment [ 41 – 45 ].…”