Cause Of Outcomes Research Articles

Cure Me Even If It Kills Me: Preferences for Invasive Cancer Treatment

When making medical decisions, people often care not only about what happens but also about whether the outcome was a result of actions voluntarily taken or a result of inaction. This study assessed the proportion of people choosing nonoptimal treatments (treatments which reduced survival chances) when presented with hypothetical cancer scenarios which varied by outcome cause. A randomized survey experiment tested preferences for curing an existent cancer with 2 possible treatments (medication or surgery) and 2 effects of treatment (beneficial or harmful). Participants were 112 prospective jurors in the Philadelphia County Courthouse and 218 visitors to the Detroit-Wayne County Metropolitan Airport. When treatment was beneficial, 27% of participants rejected medication, whereas only 10% rejected surgery with identical outcomes ( 2 = 5.87, P < 0.02). When treatment was harmful, participants offered surgery were significantly more inclined to take action (65% v. 38%, chi(2) = 11.40, P = 0.001), even though doing so reduced overall survival chances. Faced with hypothetical cancer diagnoses, many people say they would pursue treatment even if doing so would increase their chance of death. This tendency toward active treatment is notably stronger when the treatment offered is surgery instead of medication. Our study suggests that few people can imagine standing by and doing nothing after being diagnosed with cancer, and it should serve to remind clinicians that, for many patients, the best treatment alternative may not only depend on the medical outcomes they can expect to experience but also on whether those outcomes are achieved actively or passively.

A structural approach to selection bias.

The term "selection bias" encompasses various biases in epidemiology. We describe examples of selection bias in case-control studies (eg, inappropriate selection of controls) and cohort studies (eg, informative censoring). We argue that the causal structure underlying the bias in each example is essentially the same: conditioning on a common effect of 2 variables, one of which is either exposure or a cause of exposure and the other is either the outcome or a cause of the outcome. This structure is shared by other biases (eg, adjustment for variables affected by prior exposure). A structural classification of bias distinguishes between biases resulting from conditioning on common effects ("selection bias") and those resulting from the existence of common causes of exposure and outcome ("confounding"). This classification also leads to a unified approach to adjust for selection bias.

Stochastic Outcomes in Branching Space-Time: Analysis of Bell's Theorem

The paper extends the framework of outcomes in branching space-time (Kowalski and Placek [1999]) by assigning probabilities to outcomes of events, where these probabilities are interpreted either epistemically or as weighted possibilities. In resulting models I define the notion of common cause of correlated outcomes of a single event, and investigate which setups allow for the introduction of common causes. It turns out that a deterministic common cause can always be introduced, but (surprisingly) only special setups permit the introduction of truly stochastic common causes. I analyse next the Bell-Aspect experiment and derive the Bell-CH inequalities. I observe that we postulate there not a common cause for outcomes of a single event but rather a common common cause that accounts for outcomes of many events, where 'events' mean 'measurements with (different) directions of polarization'. Since the inequalities are violated, I claim that no causal story can be told about the Bell correlations, where causality is subluminal and restricted by screening-off condition. Similarly, given certain intuitive principles, no deterministic story can be told about these correlations.

Control-related beliefs and self-reported depressive symptoms in late childhood.

Research thus far links depressive symptoms in children to one type of control-related belief: low levels of perceived personal competence. However, child research, unlike adult research, has not supported a linkage between depressive symptoms and another theoretically important control-related belief: perceived noncontingency of outcomes. Here we reexamined the issue, adjusting for limitations in previous methodology by using (a) psychometrically stronger measures of control beliefs, and (b) a general population sample rather than children being treated in mental health clinics. In contrast to previous results, we found that both perceived incompetence and perceived noncontingency were strongly related to children's depression, together accounting for 40% of the variance in Child Depression Inventory scores. We also found, as in previous research, that depressive symptoms were correlated with uncertainty as to the causes of outcomes, especially successes. The findings suggest that children may be susceptible to both "personal helplessness" and "universal helplessness" forms of depression.

Measurements effects in reattribution research

AbstractIn studies investigating the effects of reattribution training, reattributing to effort is confounded with forcing subjects to think about causes of their performance. An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects on performance of having people think about causes of outcomes by means of measuring attributions for success or failure. The results indicate that measurement has a beneficial effect on performance after failure. Measurement of attributions after success does not affect performance or may even slightly deteriorate it. Explanations for these results are discussed.

Winners' and Losers' Attributions for Success and Failure in a Series of Athletic Events

Boys who participated in a series of athletic events as part of their activities at an overnight camp evaluated the importance of possible causes for success and failure in these events. These reasons included the four traditional attributions of ability, effort, luck and task difficulty, and other attributions suggested in previous person-perception studies of the causes of outcomes in achievement-related tasks. The results indicated the following: (a) two of the traditional attributions (luck and difficulty) were perceived as having little importance, (b) success was attributed to internal factors whereas failure was attributed to external factors, (c) the differences between the winners and losers provided little evidence for the presence of a self-serving bias in their evaluations of the items, and (d) the differences between actors and observers were not entirely consistent with the hypothesis that actors attribute outcomes to situational factors and observers attribute the same outcomes to dispositional factors. These results are discussed in light of possible confounds in the experimental design and previous attribution research in sport.

Causal Attributions in Sport: Some Theoretical Implications

Previous sport attribution studies have generally asked subjects to make attributions for outcomes to the four elements of ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty. These studies have assumed that these elements are the most important causes of outcomes. The present study tested this assumption. An open-ended questionnaire was given to 349 male and female subjects to determine the causal elements used in sport situations. Results showed that the four traditional elements of ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty were used 45% of the time. However, the theory advocated by Weiner (1974) is based on the dimensions of locus of control and stability, and not on the elements per se. When the responses of subjects were content analyzed for dimensional properties, it was concluded that 100% of the responses could be placed within the four cells of the Weiner model. These results support the applicability of the Weiner achievement behavior model to sport environments, but only when careful analysis of causal attributions is made to determine their dimensional relevance. The evidence suggests that situationally relevant elements be included in addition to the traditional elements of ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty.

Reactions to male and female success and failure at sex-linked occupations: Effects of sex and socio-economic status of respondents

Abstract Male and female subjects from secondary schools classified as high, medium, or low in SES completed a questionnaire previously developed by Feather and Simon (1975). Subjects responded to three short verbal cues in which either a male or female character succeeded or Tailed in an examination qualifying the male (or female) for entry into an occupation (medicine. teaching, and nursing). In responding to each cue, subjects first rated the character in the cue on semantic differential scales to provide impressions of personality, then rated the importance of different possible causes of outcome (causal attribution), and finally rated the likelihood that each of a set of possible consequences might follow the outcome. Results indicated that, while some of the effects previously found by Feather and Simon with the high SES females generalized to the high SES males, they were not evident in the other samples. Many significant effects emerging from the analysis reflected fairly general views about occup...

Causal attributions for male and female success and failure at occupations differing in perceived status and sex-linked appropriateness

Abstract Male and female subjects answered a questionnaire involving a cue in which a male and a female were in competition for the same occupation and in which one character in the cue (male or female) succeeded and the other failed. The occupation could vary in status (high, low) and sex-linkage (male-dominated, female-dominated). Subjects rated the importance of different possible causes of success (easy task, ability, hard work, good luck, sex-typing) for the cue character who succeeded and of different possible cases of failure (dificult task, lack of ability, lack of effort, bad luck, sex-typing) for the cue character who failed. Results showed that status of occupation provided information about causal determinants. Also, subjects displayed an external bias in explaining unexpected successes compared with expected successes. But both external and internal causes were invoked in accounting for unexpected failures compared with expected failures. Overall, personal causes of outcomes were seen as more...

Effects of High Status and Low Status Actor's Performance on Observers' Attributions of Causality and Behavioral Intentions

The present study investigated the effect of three variables, the difficulty level of the task, the nature of the feedback and the nature of the relationship between model and observer, on peer observers' attributions of model's performance and their subsequent intention to imitate model. It was predicted that the level of skill attributed to high sociometric status actors would be similar for both high and low task difficulty conditions whereas the magnitude of skill attributed to low sociometric status actors would be greater in the high difficult task condition than in the low difficult task condition. These expectations were confirmed. In addition, significant positive relationships between skill attributions and intention to imitate the model were found for both low and high status models, suggesting that beliefs concerning causes of outcome mediate intention to imitate. A considerable amount of research has been stimulated by Attribution Theory (Heider, 1958). The theory holds that in order to make his environment more predictable, an individual is motivated to ascertain the origin or cause of an event which is perceived to occur within his life space. As the theory has evolved, it has been primarily concerned with a person's determination of the causes of the behavior of others. This tendency on the part of a perceiver to search for the causes of an actor's behavior would appear to have particular relevance for those situations in which standards or patterns of behavior can be transmitted on the basis of observational learning through exposure to the behavior exhibited by a model. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of three variables-(1) the difficulty of the task confronting the model, (2) the nature of feedback provided the model, and (3) the nature of the relationship