Age differences in contingency judgement linked to perceptual segregation

We demonstrate large differences in judging positive and null contingencies between younger and older adults with a task commonly used to explore cue competition in both contingency and causality judgements. The one-phase blocking task uses two cues, with separate contingencies with the same outcome. The age differences persisted even when participants knew in advance which of the two contingencies to judge. The age differences disappeared, however, when the stimulus display contained markers aiding perceptual segregation. We suggest that the age differences elicited in the one-phase blocking task are linked to decrements in perceptual segregation.     

Causal judgements about two causal candidates: Accounting for occurrences,estimating strength,and the importance of interaction judgements

When two possible causes of an outcome are under consideration, contingency information concerns each possible combination of presence and absence of the two causes with occurrences and nonoccurrences of the outcome. White (2008) proposed that such judgements could be predicted by a weighted averaging model integrating these kinds of contingency information. The weights in the model are derived from the hypothesis that causal judgements seek to meet two main aims, accounting for occurrences of the outcome and estimating the strengths of the causes. Here it is shown that the model can explain many but not all relevant published findings. The remainder can be explained by reasoning about interactions between the two causes, by scenario-specific effects, and by variations in cell weight depending on quantity of available information. An experiment is reported that supports this argument. The review and experimental results support the case for a cognitive model of causal judgement in which different kinds of contingency information are utilised to satisfy particular aims of the judgement process.     

A gradual reformation: empirical character and causal powers in Kant

According to Kant each person has an empirical character, which is ultimately grounded in one’s free choice. The popular Causal Laws interpretation of empirical character holds that it consists of the causal laws governing our psychology. I argue that this reading has difficulties explaining moral change, the ‘gradual reformation’ of our empirical character: Causal laws cannot change and hence cannot be gradually reformed. I propose an alternative Causal Powers interpretation of empirical character, where our empirical character consists of our mind’s causal powers. The resulting picture of empirical character allows for moral change and Kantian weakness of will.     

Causal conjunction fallacies: The roles of causal strength and mental resources

In two experiments we tested the prediction derived from Tversky and Kahneman's (1983) work on the causal conjunction fallacy that the strength of the causal connection between constituent events directly affects the magnitude of the causal conjunction fallacy. We also explored whether any effects of perceived causal strength were due to graded output from heuristic Type 1 reasoning processes or the result of analytic Type 2 reasoning processes. As predicted, Experiment 1 demonstrated that fallacy rates were higher for strongly than for weakly related conjunctions. Weakly related conjunctions in turn attracted higher rates of fallacious responding than did unrelated conjunctions. Experiment 2 showed that a concurrent memory load increased rates of fallacious responding for strongly related but not for weakly related conjunctions. We interpret these results as showing that manipulations of the strength of the perceived causal relationship between the conjuncts result in graded output from heuristic reasoning process and that additional mental resources are required to suppress strong heuristic output.     

Weighting of contingency information in causal judgement: Evidence of hypothesis dependence and use of a positive-test strategy

Contingency is an important cue to causation. Research shows that people unequally weight the cells of a 2 × 2 contingency table as follows: cause-present/effect-present (A) > cause-present/effect-absent (B) > cause-absent/effect-present (C) > cause-absent/effect-absent (D). Although some models of causal judgement can accommodate that fact, most of them assume that the weighting of information is invariant as a function of whether one is assessing a hypothesized generative versus preventive relationship. An experiment was conducted that tested the hypothesis-independence assumption against the predictions of a novel weighted-positive-test-strategy account, which predicts hypothesis dependence in cell weighting. Supporting that account, judgements of hypothesized generative causes showed the standard A > B > C > D inequality, but judgements of hypothesized preventive causes showed the predicted B > A > D > C inequality. The findings reveal that cell weighting in causal judgement is both unequal and hypothesis dependent.     

Cue interaction effects in causal judgement: An interpretation in terms of the evidential evaluation model

In judging the extent to which a cue causes an outcome, judgement can be affected by information about other cues that are correlated with the one being judged. These cue interaction effects have usually been interpreted in terms of associative learning processes. I propose that a different model of causal judgement, the evidential evaluation model, offers a viable alternative interpretation of cue interaction phenomena. Under the evidential evaluation model, instances of contingency information are interpreted as evidence, which is confirmatory, disconfirmatory, or irrelevant for the cue being judged. When two cues co-occur in a set of instances the evidential value of the instances for one of them is determined by three factors: the proportion of confirming instances in the set; disambiguation value, which concerns the relation between the set of information and prior beliefs about the co-occurring cue; and confirmation value, which concerns the relation between the set of information and prior beliefs about the cue being judged. Any previous judgement of the cue is then modified in the light of these. It is shown that this model can account for all the cue interaction phenomena that have been investigated in studies of human causal judgement. The model also generates novel predictions, and the results of three experiments give support to these predictions. It is also shown that several other current models of causal judgement fail to predict a key result from Experiment 3.     

Two pathways to causal control: Use and availability of information in the environment in people with and without signs of depression

Perceiving one's causal control is important for adaptive behavior. Studying depression and other individual differences has provided insight into typical as well as pathological causal processing. We set out to study factors that have been shown to distinguish those with and without signs of depression and affect perceptions of causal control: levels of behavior, the availability of outcomes and learning about the environment or context. Two experiments were carried out in which participants, scoring low and high on the Beck Depression Inventory using established cutoffs, completed a causal control task, in which outcomes occurred with a low (.25) or high probability (.75). Behavior levels were either constrained (N₁ = 73) or unconstrained (N₂ = 74). Overall, findings showed that levels of behavior influenced people's experiences of the context in which events occurred. For all participants, very high behavior levels eliminated sensitivity to levels of outcomes occurring in the environment and lead to judgments that were consistent with conditional probabilities as opposed to the experimenter programmed contingency. Thus increased behavior increased perceived control via influence on context experience. This effect was also evident for those scoring high on the BDI. Overall conclusions are that behavior and context provide two important interlinked psychological pathways to perceived control. However, situations that constrain people's ability to respond freely can prevent people with signs of depression from taking control of a situation that would otherwise be uncontrollable.     

Bayes and blickets: effects of knowledge on causal induction in children and adults

People are adept at inferring novel causal relations, even from only a few observations. Prior knowledge about the probability of encountering causal relations of various types and the nature of the mechanisms relating causes and effects plays a crucial role in these inferences. We test a formal account of how this knowledge can be used and acquired, based on analyzing causal induction as Bayesian inference. Five studies explored the predictions of this account with adults and 4-year-olds, using tasks in which participants learned about the causal properties of a set of objects. The studies varied the two factors that our Bayesian approach predicted should be relevant to causal induction: the prior probability with which causal relations exist, and the assumption of a deterministic or a probabilistic relation between cause and effect. Adults' judgments (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) were in close correspondence with the quantitative predictions of the model, and children's judgments (Experiments 3 and 5) agreed qualitatively with this account.     

Do the right thing: The assumption of optimality in lay decision theory and causal judgment

Human decision-making is often characterized as irrational and suboptimal. Here we ask whether people nonetheless assume optimal choices from other decision-makers: Are people intuitive classical economists? In seven experiments, we show that an agent’s perceived optimality in choice affects attributions of responsibility and causation for the outcomes of their actions. We use this paradigm to examine several issues in lay decision theory, including how responsibility judgments depend on the efficacy of the agent’s actual and counterfactual choices (Experiments 1–3), individual differences in responsibility assignment strategies (Experiment 4), and how people conceptualize decisions involving trade-offs among multiple goals (Experiments 5–6). We also find similar results using everyday decision problems (Experiment 7). Taken together, these experiments show that attributions of responsibility depend not only on what decision-makers do, but also on the quality of the options they choose not to take.     

Miserliness in human cognition: the interaction of detection,override and mindware

ABSTRACT

Humans are cognitive misers because their basic tendency is to default to processing mechanisms of low computational expense. Such a tendency leads to suboptimal outcomes in certain types of hostile environments. The theoretical inferences made from correct and incorrect responding on heuristics and biases tasks have been overly simplified, however. The framework developed here traces the complexities inherent in these tasks by identifying five processing states that are possible in most heuristics and biases tasks. The framework also identifies three possible processing defects: inadequately learned mindware; failure to detect the necessity of overriding the miserly response; and failure to sustain the override process once initiated. An important insight gained from using the framework is that degree of mindware instantiation is strongly related to the probability of successful detection and override. Thus, errors on such tasks cannot be unambiguously attributed to miserly processing – and correct responses are not necessarily the result of computationally expensive cognition.     

Suppression of negative and expression of positive emotions: Divergent effects of emotional display rules in a hostile service interaction

Cross-sectional studies have found that demands to express positive emotions have more desirable associations with service providers' well-being and service quality than demands to suppress negative emotions. Despite their potential importance, emotional labour research has not clarified the nature of these differences yet. The present experimental study aimed to investigate the causal effects of demands to suppress negative emotions, demands to express positive emotions, and their interaction in a simulated service interaction. In total, 101 participants were instructed to play the role of a service employee, who had to interact with a dissatisfied and uncivil customer. Participants were randomly given information that the organization expected them to (1) express genuinely felt emotions, (2) suppress negative emotions, (3) express positive emotions, or (4) suppress negative emotions and express positive emotions. Results confirmed that demands to suppress negative emotions decreased well-being, whereas demands to express positive emotions led to a better service quality. Moreover, service quality was only increased if demands to express positive emotions were not supplemented by demands to suppress negative emotions. These findings suggest that not only demands to express positive emotions can reduce the cost/benefit ratio of emotional labour, but also organizations should avoid imposing demands to suppress negative emotions.     

Neuroticism,conscientiousness and fruit consumption: Exploring mediator and moderator effects in the theory of planned behaviour

Integrating the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) with the five-factor model (FFM) of personality may provide insight into the cognitive and motivational mechanisms linking personality with health behaviour, but this issue has received very little attention regarding fruit consumption. Mediator effects of TPB concepts in the personality–fruit consumption link, as well as moderator effects of personality in the intention–fruit consumption link, were therefore investigated in the present study. Data on fruit consumption, TPB concepts and FFM dimensions were gathered among 405 respondents in face-to-face interviews using questionnaires. Structural equation modelling was used to investigate the mediator and moderator effects. The direct effect of conscientiousness on fruit consumption was mediated by attitude and perceived behavioural control, while no direct effect of neuroticism on fruit consumption was found. Neuroticism moderated the intention–fruit consumption relationship with the weakest relationship for those scoring high on neuroticism. Conscientiousness did not moderate the intention–fruit consumption relationship. TPB variables are mediators in the conscientiousness–fruit consumption link. Whether fruit consumption is intentional may be dependent upon the personality dimension neuroticism. Personality dimensions may be a useful addition to the TPB and should be considered in health behaviour change interventions.     

Chaos and God's Abundance: An Ontology of Variety in the Divine Life

The primordial chaos of Genesis 1 may be understood as the Pandemonium Tremendum (or PT), the infinite field of variety or abundance within God. The concept of variety is taken from Claude Shannon's theory of communication. Especially significant is Shannon's notion that communication is the limitation of variety through decision processes. In one model of the divine life suggested by the theory, the PT is the boundless source of potential reaped by an agential God in the act of creation as a communication process. Other models for creation include the PT in a biased mode and creatures themselves as decision agents.     

The social phobia and social interaction anxiety scales: An exploration of the dimensions of social anxiety and sex differences in structure and relations with pathology

This study sought to provide information on the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) of Mattick and Clarke (1989) with respect to factor structure, relations with psychopathology, and sex differences. A sample of 200 university students completed the SPS and SIAS and various measures of anxiety symptoms and depression. The results from the factor analyses for the sample as a whole suggest the presence of three factors corresponding to scrutiny fears, social interaction anxiety, and a general level of discomfort in social interactions. The results for men replicated this structure. For women, the three-factor solution demonstrated a blurring between the types of anxiety-provoking situations, and a general discomfort in situations involving differences in social power. In general, the discomfort factor was not correlated with measures of pathology, raising the possibility that uneasiness in these situations represents a process that is not part of social anxiety. The distinction between scrutiny fears and social interaction anxiety was also supported by the pattern of partial correlations that suggests that the presence of scrutiny fears is a stronger predictor of psychopathology than is social interaction anxiety, especially for men.     

Moderating effects of the valence of social interaction on the dysfunctional consequences of perseverative cognition: an ecological study in major depression and social anxiety disorder

Background and Objectives: Major depression disorder (MDD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) are characterized by the use of perseverative cognition (PC) as a dysfunctional coping strategy. We sought to investigate the dysfunctional physiological and psychological consequences of PC and how the valence of social interactions moderates such consequences in these psychopathological conditions.

Design/Methods: The study combined 24-hour heart rate variability (HRV) and ecological momentary assessments in 48 individuals with MDD, SAD, and sex-matched controls.

Results: In all participants, PC was associated with mood worsening and reduced ability of the parasympathetic nervous system, mainly the vagus, to inhibit sympathetic arousal (i.e., reduced HRV). Individuals with SAD had the highest frequency of daily PC, while those with MDD reported that PC interfered more with their ongoing activities. In SAD, daily PC was associated with significantly lower HRV after negative social interactions. Individuals with MDD reported higher levels of sadness during PC irrespective of the valence of the preceding social interaction but higher levels of anxiety and efforts to inhibit PC following positive interactions.

Conclusions: Results highlight the need to account for important moderators like the valence of social interaction when looking at the physiological consequences of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies.