Department of Psychology, UC Berkeley, 3210 Tolman Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Cogn Psychol. 2010 Dec;61(4):303-32. doi: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2010.05.002.
Both philosophers and psychologists have argued for the existence of distinct kinds of explanations, including teleological explanations that cite functions or goals, and mechanistic explanations that cite causal mechanisms. Theories of causation, in contrast, have generally been unitary, with dominant theories focusing either on counterfactual dependence or on physical connections. This paper argues that both approaches to causation are psychologically real, with different modes of explanation promoting judgments more or less consistent with each approach. Two sets of experiments isolate the contributions of counterfactual dependence and physical connections in causal ascriptions involving events with people, artifacts, or biological traits, and manipulate whether the events are construed teleologically or mechanistically. The findings suggest that when events are construed teleologically, causal ascriptions are sensitive to counterfactual dependence and relatively insensitive to the presence of physical connections, but when events are construed mechanistically, causal ascriptions are sensitive to both counterfactual dependence and physical connections. The conclusion introduces an account of causation, an "exportable dependence theory," that provides a way to understand the contributions of physical connections and teleology in terms of the functions of causal ascriptions.
哲学家和心理学家都认为存在不同类型的解释，包括目的论解释，即引用功能或目标；以及机械论解释，即引用因果机制。相比之下，因果理论通常是单一的，主导理论要么关注反事实依赖，要么关注物理联系。本文认为，这两种因果方法在心理学上都是真实的，不同的解释模式或多或少地促进了与每种方法一致的判断。两组实验在涉及人物、人工制品或生物特征的事件的因果归因中分离出反事实依赖和物理联系的贡献，并操纵事件是被目的论地还是机械地构建。研究结果表明，当事件被目的论地构建时，因果归因对反事实依赖敏感，对物理联系相对不敏感，但当事件被机械地构建时，因果归因对反事实依赖和物理联系都敏感。结论介绍了一种因果关系理论，即“可导出依赖理论”，它提供了一种根据因果归因的功能来理解物理联系和目的论的贡献的方法。
