Lesson 10

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Lesson 10

• Rival Causes

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What are Rival Causes?

• A plausible alternative explanation that can
  explain why a certain outcome occurred.
• Searching for rival causes will always be
  appropriate when a communicator
• Presents you with evidence
• Offers a cause to explain that evidence.
• Communicators can indicate causal thinking to you
  in several different ways.
• Next Slide -gt

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What are Rival Causes?

• X has the effect of
• X leads to
• X influences
• X is linked to

• X deters
• X increases the likelihood
• X determines
• X is associated with

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What are Rival Causes?

• When you realize a rival cause is possible you
  need to ask a series of critical questions such
  as
• Can I think of any other way to interpret the
  evidence?
• What else might have cause this act or findings?
• If I looked at this from another persons
  perspective, what might I see as important
  causes?
• If this interpretation is wrong, what other
  interpretations might make better sense?

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What are Rival Causes?

• A researcher reported that eating celery helps
  curb aggression. 151 women were surveyed, and 95
  who reported eating celery on a regular basis
  also reported low levels of aggression, or
  overall irritability. Of the portion of women who
  do not eat celery on a regular basis, 53
  reported frequent feelings of irritability,
  agitation, and aggression.
• Issue, Conclusion, Reasons, Evidences, Fallacies?
• Any possible rival causes?

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What are Rival Causes?

• Since 1993, the levels of serious violent crime
  in the United States have decreased steadily. It
  is obvious that the heavy focus we place on law
  enforcement is no longer necessary. People are
  becoming civic minded and are choosing to no
  longer pursue a life of crime. Money spent on law
  enforcement can now better be spent elsewhere.
• Issue, Conclusion, Reasons, Evidences, Fallacies?
• Any possible rival causes?

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What are Rival Causes?

• What can we learn from these examples?
• Many kinds of events are open to explanation by
  rival causes.
• Experts can examine the same evidence and
  discover different causes to explain it.
• Most communicators will provide only the
  information that favors their conclusion.
• Generating rival causes is a creative process
  usually rival causes are not obvious.
• The certainty of a particular causal claim is
  directly related to the number of plausible rival
  causes.

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The Cause vs. a Cause

• Avoid this common error
• Looking for a simple, single cause of an event.
• Reality is much more complicated
• Events are usually the result of a combination of
  many contributory causes.
• A contributory cause
• A cause that helps to create a total set of
  conditions necessary for the event to occur.
• Most events have multiple contributory causes.
• The best causal explanation is the one that
  combines a considerable number of causes that
  only together are sufficient to bring about the
  event.

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The Cause vs. a Cause

• When searching for rival causes
• Remember that any single cause that we might
  identify is much more likely to be a contributory
  cause than the cause.
• When we fail to remember this we commit the
  fallacy of causal oversimplification.
• We rely on causal factors that are insufficient
  to cause the event.
• We overemphasize the role of one or more factors.

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The Cause vs. a Cause

• Open your textbooks to page 128
• Paragraph on playing violent video games.
• What are some rival causes?

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Rival Causes for Differences between Groups

• Research groups (samples) always differ in more
  than one important way.
• Group differences often are consistent with
  multiple causes.
• Ask,
• Are there rival causes that might also explain
  the differences in the groups?

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Rival Causes for Differences between Groups

• In a recent research study, students who prepare
  for a standardized test by taking a special
  course designed to teach students how to take the
  test have scored higher than students who prepare
  for the same standardized test by reviewing
  several books about the test.
• What two groups are present?
• What rival causes are present?

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Confusions

• Common Mistakes
• The confusion of cause and effect.
• Confusing the cause with the effect of an event
  or when people fail to recognize that the two
  events may be influencing each other. 
• The neglect of a common cause.
• Failing to recognize that two events might be
  related because of the effects of a common third
  factor.

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Confusions

• People tend to think that events that are go
  together cause one another.
• We conclude that because characteristic X is
  associated with characteristic Y, that X
  therefore causes Y.
• Usually such thinking is wrong.
• Usually multiple hypotheses can explain why X and
  Y go together.

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Confusions

• For example
• Classes with larger number of students enrolled
  tend to experience high rates of students
  skipping class.
• Or
• More red cars than any other color are pulled
  over for speeding therefore, the color of the
  car affects how fast it goes.

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Confusions

• Turn to page 130 in your textbook.
• Work through the example about smoking.
• Turn to page 131 in your textbook.
• Work through the example about ice cream.

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Post hoc Fallacy

• Assumes a particular event is caused by another
  event simply because one follows another in time.
• Example on page 132.
• Just because one event follows another in time
  does not automatically prove causation.

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Post hoc Fallacy

• When we see the Post hoc Fallacy
• ASK
• Are there rival causes that could account for
  the event?
• Is there any good evidence other than the fact
  that one event followed the other event in time?

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Evaluating Rival Causes

• How do we know when a particular rival cause is
  valid or not?
• When comparing rival causes, we would be wise to
  apply the following criteria
• Their logical soundness
• Their consistency with other knowledge that we
  have and
• Their previous success in explaining or
  predicting events.

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End of Lesson