A debiasing intervention to reduce the causality bias in undergraduates: the role of a bias induction phase
No hay miniatura disponible
Fecha
2023-01-14
Título de la revista
ISSN de la revista
Título del volumen
Editor
Springer
Resumen
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/.
Palabras clave
Causality bias
Cognitive bias
Debiasing
Educational intervention
Illusion of causality
Cognitive bias
Debiasing
Educational intervention
Illusion of causality
Descripción
Materias
Cita
Martínez, N., Rodríguez-Ferreiro, J., Barberia, I., & Matute, H. (2023). A debiasing intervention to reduce the causality bias in undergraduates: the role of a bias induction phase. Current Psychology, 42(36), 32456-32468. https://doi.org/10.1007/S12144-022-04197-2