Search

Background: We have previously presented two educational interventions aimed to diminish causal illusions and promote critical thinking. In both cases, these interventions reduced causal illusions developed in response to active contingency learning tasks, in which participants were able to decide whether to introduce the potential cause in each of the learning trials. The reduction of causal judgments appeared to be influenced by differences in the frequency with which the participants decided to apply the potential cause, hence indicating that the intervention affected their information sampling strategies. Objective: In the present study, we investigated whether one of these interventions also reduces causal illusions when covariation information is acquired passively. Method: Forty-one psychology undergraduates received our debiasing intervention, while 31 students were assigned to a control condition. All participants completed a passive contingency learning task. Results: We found weaker causal illusions in students that participated in the debiasing intervention, compared to the control group. Conclusion: The intervention affects not only the way the participants look for new evidence, but also the way they interpret given information. Teaching implications: Our data extending previous results regarding evidence-based educational interventions aimed to promote critical thinking to situations in which we act as mere observers.

The causality bias, or causal illusion, occurs when people believe that there is a causal relationship between events that are actually uncorrelated. This bias is associated with many problems in everyday life, including pseudoscience, stereotypes, prejudices, and ideological extremism. Some evidence-based educational interventions have been developed to reduce causal illusions. To the best of our knowledge, these interventions have included a bias induction phase prior to the training phase, but the role of this bias induction phase has not yet been investigated. The aim of the present research was to examine it. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups (induction + training, training, and control, as a function of the phases they received before assessment). We evaluated their causal illusion using a standard contingency judgment task. In a null contingency scenario, the causal illusion was reduced in the training and induction-training groups as compared to the control group, suggesting that the intervention was effective regardless of whether or not the induction phase was included. In addition, in a positive contingency scenario, the induction + training group generated lower causal judgments than the control group, indicating that sometimes the induction phase may produce an increase in general skepticism. The raw data of this experiment are available at the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/k9nes/, Author(s): Naroa Martínez [sup.1] , Javier Rodríguez-Ferreiro [sup.2] , Itxaso Barberia [sup.2] , Helena Matute [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) https://ror.org/00ne6sr39, grid.14724.34, 0000 0001 0941 7046, Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de [...]

Acceptance of fake news is probably modulated by an intricate interplay of social, cultural, and political factors. In this study, we investigated whether individual-level cognitive factors related to thinking and decision making could influence the tendency to accept fake news. A group of volunteers responded to a COVID-19-related fake news discrimination scale as well as to questionnaires assessing their thinking style (reflective vs. intuitive) and thinking disposition (actively open-mindedness). Furthermore, they completed a computerized contingency learning task aimed at measuring their tendency to develop a causal illusion, a cognitive bias leading to perceive causal connections between non-contingent events. More actively open-minded and more reflective individuals presented higher fake news discrimination scores. In addition, those who developed weaker causal illusions in the contingency learning task were also more accurate at differentiating between fake and legitimate news. Actively open-minded thinking was the main contributor in a regression model predicting fake news discrimination.

Extinction is a very relevant learning phenomenon from a theoretical and applied point of view. One of its most relevant features is that relapse phenomena often take place once the extinction training has been completed. Accordingly, as extinction-based therapies constitute the most widespread empirically validated treatment of anxiety disorders, one of their most important limitations is this potential relapse. We provide the first demonstration of relapse reduction in human contingency learning using mild aversive stimuli. This effect was found after partial extinction (i.e., reinforced trials were occasionally experienced during extinction, Experiment 1) and progressive extinction treatments (Experiment 3), and it was not only because of differences in uncertainty levels between the partial and a standard extinction group (Experiment 2). The theoretical explanation of these results, the potential uses of this strategy in applied situations, and its current limitations are discussed.

The propositional or rationalist Bayesian approach to learning is contrasted with an interpretation of causal learning in associative terms. A review of the development of the use of rational causal models in the psychology of learning is discussed concluding with the presentation of three areas of research related to cause-effect learning. We explain how rational context choices, a selective association effect (i.e., blocking of inhibition) as well as causal structure can all emerge from processes that can be modeled using elements of standard associative theory. We present the auto-associator (e.g., Baetu & Baker, 2009) as one such simple account of causal structure.

Pseudotherapies are a challenge and a danger to public health. In an experimental study, it was investigated how people develop beliefs in these pseudotherapies and it was discovered that information in favor of them coming from experts has a greater impact on the formation of opinions than information against them. It is suggested that healthcare professionals need thorough and up-to-date training on this critical topic. Additionally, the responsibility of healthcare professionals in promoting pseudotherapies is highlighted, and it is recommended to consult reliable sources for updated information on the effectiveness of dubious treatments. [Extracted from the article]

In two experiments, we studied the strategies that people use to discover causal relationships. According to inferential approaches to causal discovery, if people attempt to discover the power of a cause, then they should naturally select the most informative and unambiguous context. For generative causes this would be a context with a low base rate of effects generated by other causes and for preventive causes a context with a high base rate. In the following experiments, we used probabilistic and/or deterministic target causes and contexts. In each experiment, participants observed several contexts in which the effect occurred with different probabilities. After this training, the participants were presented with different target causes whose causal status was unknown. In order to discover the influence of each cause, participants were allowed, on each trial, to choose the context in which the cause would be tested. As expected by inferential theories, the participants preferred to test generative causes in low base rate contexts and preventative causes in high base rate contexts. The participants, however, persisted in choosing the less informative contexts on a substantial minority of trials long after they had discovered the power of the cause. We discuss the matching law from operant conditioning as an alternative explanation of the findings.

Causal illusions consist of believing that there is a causal relationship between events that are actually unrelated. This bias is associated with pseudoscience, stereotypes and other unjustified beliefs. Thus, it seems important to develop educational interventions to reduce them. To our knowledge, the only debiasing intervention designed to be used at schools was developed by Barberia et al. (Barberia et al. 2013 PLoS One 8 , e71303 (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0071303)), focusing on base rates, control conditions and confounding variables. Their assessment used an active causal illusion task where participants could manipulate the candidate cause. The intervention reduced causal illusions in adolescents but was only tested in a small experimental project. The present research evaluated it in a large-scale project through a collaboration with the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), and was conducted in schools to make it ecologically valid. It included a pilot study ( n = 287), a large-scale implementation ( n = 1668; 40 schools) and a six-month follow-up ( n = 353). Results showed medium-to-large and long-lasting effects on the reduction of causal illusions. To our knowledge, this is the first research showing the efficacy and long-term effects of a debiasing intervention against causal illusions that can be used on a large scale through the educational system., Competing Interests: We declare we have no competing interests., (© 2024 The Author(s).)