{"pk":25636,"title":"Naïve Beliefs About Intervening on Causes and Symptoms in the Health Domain","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>In two experiments we tested people‚Äôs na√Øve beliefs about where interventions act in real-world causal systems. We provided people with a description of a novel health condition that could be treated by two different treatments, a medication and a lifestyle modification. Participants judged a medication as acting on the symptoms of a disorder instead of the cause of the disorder, while a lifestyle modification was seen as acting on both the cause and the symptoms of a health condition (Experiment 1). These results held despite participants rating both treatments as effective. Providing information about the specific causal mechanism by which a treatment could work did not increase beliefs about a medication‚Äôs ability to target the cause of a disorder (Experiment 2). Implications for understanding of everyday causal interventions and health treatments is discussed.</p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"causal reasoning; interventions; health carereasoning."}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3zr9s8m7","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Jessecae","middle_name":"K","last_name":"Marsh","name_suffix":"","institution":"Lehigh University","department":""},{"first_name":"Andrew","middle_name":"","last_name":"Zeveney","name_suffix":"","institution":"Lehigh University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2015-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/25636/galley/15260/download/"}]}