Causal reasoning in performance assessment: Effects of cause and effect temporal order and covariation

Abstract

The role of information in the process of diagnostic inference required for the evaluation of operational performance was investigated. Assuming the role of a manufacturing division manager, subjects were asked to estimate the likelihoods of four potential causes of a department's weekly labor efficiency variance. Given requested items of evidence, subjects were asked to re-estimate the causal likelihoods. The results generally confirmed a set of hypotheses predicting the effects of cause/effect temporal orders and cause/effect covariations, supporting the notions that temporal order and covariation are cues-to-causality used by individuals when inferring causality and that temporal order is a noncompensatory cue. Additional evidence is presented that supports the notion that although individuals prefer evidence concerned with confirming the cause/effect relation to evidence concerned with disconfirming the relation, preference for evidence concerned with disconfirming the relation increases as additional items of evidence are sought.