Naturalistic investigations and models of reasoning about complex indeterminate causation

Abstract

This chapter focuses on reasoning about the causal explanation of events and human activities that are indeterminate and complex. We first consider some classical ideas about physical causation from David Hume and John Stuart Mill, who had significant impact on the psychology of reasoning, and we find in their writings some notions that carry over into modern analyses of cause-effect relations and causal reasoning. We then present the macrocognition paradigm, which is empirically grounded in studies of naturalistic decision making, and approaches the analysis of causal reasoning through investigation of the functional purposes of various forms of causal reasoning. This sets the stage for presentation of our research on how people interpret the causal reasoning that is presented in newspaper articles. Findings include new patterns and models of causal reasoning. We conclude with a discussion of some myths about causation that characterize theories but that do not match well to our research findings.