Reducing the causal illusion: a question of motivation or of information?
The causal illusion is a cognitive bias that involves believing that one event causes another when it does not. It has negative consequences in different spheres of life, including health. Therefore, diverse interventions have been designed to reduce it. The more common ones are educational interven...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
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| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.250082 |
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| author | Aranzazu Vinas Fernando Blanco Helena Matute |
| author_facet | Aranzazu Vinas Fernando Blanco Helena Matute |
| author_sort | Aranzazu Vinas |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The causal illusion is a cognitive bias that involves believing that one event causes another when it does not. It has negative consequences in different spheres of life, including health. Therefore, diverse interventions have been designed to reduce it. The more common ones are educational interventions. These include different elements related to improving both, motivation and information. We wanted to explore which of the two factors was more important for their effectiveness. We first used financial incentives to promote motivation (experiments 1a and 1b), but did not find them effective. Second, we used debiasing instructions about what has to be done to infer the causal relationship between two events accurately. This effectively reduced the causal illusion when the circumstances were in place for the illusion to be high (experiment 2). We discuss the results and their theoretical and practical implications. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-984e2e8df0a84dd1a49e4c39368e58ea |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-984e2e8df0a84dd1a49e4c39368e58ea2025-08-20T03:45:41ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032025-06-0112610.1098/rsos.250082Reducing the causal illusion: a question of motivation or of information?Aranzazu Vinas0Fernando Blanco1Helena Matute2Department of Psychology, University of Deusto, Bilbao, SpainDepartment of Social Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, SpainDepartment of Psychology, University of Deusto, Bilbao, SpainThe causal illusion is a cognitive bias that involves believing that one event causes another when it does not. It has negative consequences in different spheres of life, including health. Therefore, diverse interventions have been designed to reduce it. The more common ones are educational interventions. These include different elements related to improving both, motivation and information. We wanted to explore which of the two factors was more important for their effectiveness. We first used financial incentives to promote motivation (experiments 1a and 1b), but did not find them effective. Second, we used debiasing instructions about what has to be done to infer the causal relationship between two events accurately. This effectively reduced the causal illusion when the circumstances were in place for the illusion to be high (experiment 2). We discuss the results and their theoretical and practical implications.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.250082decision-makingcognitive biascausal illusionincentivesdebiasingcausal judgements |
| spellingShingle | Aranzazu Vinas Fernando Blanco Helena Matute Reducing the causal illusion: a question of motivation or of information? Royal Society Open Science decision-making cognitive bias causal illusion incentives debiasing causal judgements |
| title | Reducing the causal illusion: a question of motivation or of information? |
| title_full | Reducing the causal illusion: a question of motivation or of information? |
| title_fullStr | Reducing the causal illusion: a question of motivation or of information? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reducing the causal illusion: a question of motivation or of information? |
| title_short | Reducing the causal illusion: a question of motivation or of information? |
| title_sort | reducing the causal illusion a question of motivation or of information |
| topic | decision-making cognitive bias causal illusion incentives debiasing causal judgements |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.250082 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT aranzazuvinas reducingthecausalillusionaquestionofmotivationorofinformation AT fernandoblanco reducingthecausalillusionaquestionofmotivationorofinformation AT helenamatute reducingthecausalillusionaquestionofmotivationorofinformation |