Event Details
Characterizing Causal Discounting: A Bias in Drawing Causal Inferences When Faced With Multiple Potential Causes
- Event Date: October 26, 2006
- Event Start Time: 12:00 PM
- Event End Time: 7:00 PM
- Event Location: Seton Hall University, Department of Psychology
- Event Semester: Fall 2006
- Event Contact: Dr. Kelly Goedert
- Event Extra info: <a href="http://pirate.shu.edu/~goederke/ ">Dr. Kelly Goedert</a>
When drawing causal inferences from contingency information, participants tend to devalue a moderately effective cause when it is learned about in the presence of a highly effective cause. Although some of this devaluing can be attributed to controlling for alternative causes, devaluing beyond that which can be accounted for by controlling for alternative causes occurs. �In Experiment 1, I will present a evidence that such devaluing (termed discounting) is cognitively dissociable from controlling for alternative causes. In Experiments 2 and 3, I present evidence consistent with the idea that discounting is a judgment bias that can be at least partially overridden.