{"pk":26396,"title":"Are Symptom Clusters Explanatory?\nA Study in Mental Disorders and Non-Causal Explanation","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Three experiments investigate whether and why people accept\nexplanations for symptoms that appeal to mental disorders,\nsuch as: “She experiences delusions because she has\nschizophrenia.” Such explanations are potentially puzzling, as\nmental disorder diagnoses are made on the basis of symptoms,\nand the DSM implicitly rejects a commitment to some\ncommon, underlying cause. Do laypeople nonetheless\nconceptualize mental disorder classifications in causal terms?\nOr is this an instance of non-causal explanation? Experiment 1\nshows that such explanations are indeed found explanatory.\nExperiment 2 presents participants with novel disorders that\nare stipulated to involve or not involve an underlying cause\nacross symptoms and people. Disorder classifications are\nfound more explanatory when a causal basis is stipulated, or\nwhen participants infer that one is present (even after it’s\ndenied in the text). Finally, Experiment 3 finds that merely\nhaving a principled, but non-causal, basis for defining\nsymptom clusters is insufficient to reach the explanatory\npotential of categories with a stipulated common cause. We\ndiscuss the implications for accounts of explanation and for\npsychiatry.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"explanation"},{"word":"Understanding"},{"word":"Mental Disorders"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8jr0r93x","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Daniel","middle_name":"","last_name":"Wilkenfeld","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of California Berkeley","department":""},{"first_name":"Jennifer","middle_name":"","last_name":"Asselin","name_suffix":"","institution":"The Ohio State University","department":""},{"first_name":"Tania","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lombrozo","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of California Berkeley","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2016-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/26396/galley/16032/download/"}]}