Illusions of causality: how they bias our everyday thinking and how they could be reduced
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00888/full
Illusions of causality occur when people develop the belief that there is a causal connection between two events that are actually unrelated.
We cannot think of a better safeguard against the illusions of causality than scientific thinking, which involves skepticism, doubt, and rigorously applying scientific methods, particularly the experimental approach.
- How to Assess the Illusion
- The Probability of the Outcome
- The Probability of the Cause
- Cause-Outcome Coincidences
- Maximizing the Outcome vs. - Testing the Causal Relationship
- The Cost of Action—Secondary Effects
- Depression
- Personal Involvement
- When There are Several Potential Causes
- Aversive Conditions: Just the Other Way Around?
- Developing an Educational Strategy
How to decrease likelihood of experiencing illusions of correlation or causality:
- Knowing when and how to use skepticism and critical thinking skills.
- Relying on scientific methods that can assess causality.
- Learning how to think scientifically.
- Be vigilant and detect your own interpretations of causality.
- Understanding the importance of controlling for extraneous variables.
- Staying informed about potential alternative explanations for an event.
- Understanding that causality cannot be assessed by quick intuition.
- Actively or passively observing the effects of removing or reducing the perceived cause of an outcome.
- Attempt to complete information of instances when perceived causes and outcomes co-occur and do not co-occur.
- Running an experiment to test the effects of one variable on the outcomes of the other variable.
- Distancing ourselves from situations in which we are personally involved.
- Allow objective or neutral observers to help judge for causal relationships.
@choutos
once I read a book, and it’s emphasizing the importance to understand that ‘creative thinking’ or ‘imaginative thinking’ (which actually one as divergent way of think) will be turned off if the human start to evaluate seriously the thing he think (critical thinking).
Economically Speaking : to create something is beneficial for the economy and I don’t undercut the importance of the critical thinking to mitigate any damages if possible
And I probably differentiate between being wrong and being disillusioned. I mean people can be in a cult, but also can make several decisions that’s not injuring him economically in the process.
@blinkwarp I was talking specifically about “illusions of correlation or causality”.
Basically speaking, this is when we credit a result to the wrong originator. For example, thinking that homeopathy can cure a disease; or that wearing a “magic” bracelet can help you perform better in a given sport.