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Reasonable reasoner: The influence of intervention strategy, system parameters and their representation on causal understanding

Bullemer, Beth Cristina
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1446404547

Abstract Details

2015, Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, Human Factors and Industrial/Organizational Psychology MS.
The following study assessed how contingency and delay influence people’s reasoning strategy and outcomes after interacting with a representation of a discrete and continuous system environment, in the context of controlling hypertension. The related causal reasoning and system dynamics research adopt different measurement paradigms and employ different system dynamics, making it difficult to resolve the empirical findings. Specifically, the causal reasoning literature has traditionally considered systems in which previous inputs do not influence future outcomes (e.g., a discrete system condition) while the system dynamics literature removes this constraint (e.g., a continuous system condition). Also, the system dynamics literature has focused on the ability to control pre-specified systems, whereas the causal reasoning literature has focused on the ability to discover and identify causal relationships. To examine reasoning under conditions comparable to hypertension management, I asked participants to consider causal scenarios involving causal variables (e.g., treatment options) with different amounts of contingency and delay in relation to a known outcome variable (i.e., level of blood pressure) with the representation of either a discrete or continuous system condition. The findings address the relationship between causal attribution and system control, highlighting the effect of the system representation and dynamics on both reasoning behavior and outcomes, and challenging whether the efforts to build reasoning theory based on the combination of simplified paradigms paradoxically result in artificially complex problems and misleading theory. Participants’ use of more observation-dependent intervention strategies with the discrete system condition indicates that they were aware of and responding to salient information. Additionally, differences in information accessibility explain why more extreme causal attributions were observed with the continuous system condition. Independent of system condition, specific intervention strategies (observation-independent and treatment-biased strategies) led to higher causal attributions, again reinforcing that system representation and underlying system dynamics directs reasoning outcomes.
Valerie Shalin, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Dragana Claflin, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
John Flach, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
314 p.
Psychology
contingency, delay, strategy, system, causal attribution, system control

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Bullemer, B. C. (2015). Reasonable reasoner: The influence of intervention strategy, system parameters and their representation on causal understanding [Master's thesis, Wright State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1446404547

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bullemer, Beth. Reasonable reasoner: The influence of intervention strategy, system parameters and their representation on causal understanding. 2015. Wright State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1446404547.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bullemer, Beth. "Reasonable reasoner: The influence of intervention strategy, system parameters and their representation on causal understanding." Master's thesis, Wright State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wright1446404547

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

wright1446404547
307
© 2015, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Wright State University and OhioLINK.