Citation

White PA. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 2008; 22(4): 559-572.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/acp.1381

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This research is concerned with the structure of people's beliefs about causal processes in complex natural systems. A set of entities was derived from an expert analysis of important factors in relation to forest ecosystems and climate change. These included human population, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, fires and several biological features such as extinction rates. In two experiments participants were presented with each pair of entities and asked whether change in one would produce change in the other. From the judgements made, causal networks were constructed that reflected consensual causal beliefs. The resultant causal network was unidirectional, with some entities, such as humans, functioning as causal origins and others, such as extinction rates, functioning as effects. This is consistent with previous research showing unidirectional patterns of thinking about causality in natural systems. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Language: en