Causal versus diagnostic contingencies

On self-deception and on the voter's illusion

Bibliographic Data

ID6205767
AuthorsGeorge A Quattrone (Stanford University, corresponding author), Amos Tversky
Year1984
Volume46
Issue2
Pages237-248
Publication date1984-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037//0022-3514.46.2.237
OpenAlexW4235711547
LanguageEN
Citations received85
References cited5

Two experiments were conducted to test the notion that people select actions that are diagnostic of favorable outcomes even though the actions do not cause those outcomes. In the first experiment, subjects immersed their forearm into a chest of circulating cold water before and after physical exercise. Depending on condition, subjects learned that a long life expectancy was associated either with increases or decreases in tolerance in cold water after the exercise. As predicted, subjects showed changes in tolerance on the second trial in the direction correlated with a long, healthy life. In the second experiment, subjects encountered one of two theories about the sort of voters who determine the margin of victory in an election. Only one of the theories would enable voting subjects to imagine that they could induce other like-minded persons to vote. As predicted, more subjects indicated that they would vote given that theory than given a theory in which the subject's vote would not be diagnostic of the electoral outcome, although the causal impact of the subject's vote is the same under both theories. (Author)

Cognitive psychology · Deception · Illusion · Self-deception · Ethics in Clinical Research · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

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