Clinical Psychology and Behavioural Neuroscience, Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Sci Prog. 2024 Apr-Jun;107(2):368504241235505. doi: 10.1177/00368504241235505.
The avoidance of causality in the design, analysis and interpretation of non-experimental studies has often been criticised as an untenable scientific stance, because theories are based on causal relations (and not associations) and a rich set of methodological tools for causal analysis has been developed in recent decades. Psychology researchers (n = 106 with complete data) participated in an online study presenting a causal statement about the results of a fictitious paper on the potential effect of drinking clear water for years on the risk of dementia. Two randomised groups of participants were then asked to reflect on the conflict between the goal of approaching a causal answer and the prevailing norm of avoiding doing so. One of the two groups was also instructed to think about possible benefits of addressing causality. Both groups then responded to a list of 19 items about attitudes to causal questions in science. A control group did this without reflecting on conflict or benefits. Free-text assessments were also collected during reflection, giving some indication of how and why causality is avoided. We condense the exploratory findings of this study into five new hypotheses about the how and why, filtered through what can be explained by . These concern the cost of addressing causality, the variety of ways in which dissonance can be reduced, the need for profound intervention through teaching and social aspects. Predictions are derived from the hypotheses for confirmation trials in future studies and recommendations for teaching causality. Open data are provided for researchers' own analyses.
非实验研究在设计、分析和解释中避免因果关系的做法常常受到批评，因为理论是基于因果关系（而不是关联），而且最近几十年已经开发出了一整套用于因果分析的方法学工具。心理学家（n=106 名数据完整的参与者）参加了一项在线研究，研究提出了一个关于虚构的关于多年饮用清水对痴呆风险影响的论文结果的因果陈述。然后，将两个随机分组的参与者要求思考在接近因果答案的目标和避免这样做的普遍规范之间的冲突。其中一个小组还被指示思考解决因果关系的可能好处。然后，两组都对关于科学中因果问题态度的 19 个项目进行了回答。一个对照组在没有考虑冲突或好处的情况下完成了此操作。在反思过程中还收集了自由文本评估，这为我们了解因果关系是如何以及为什么被回避提供了一些线索。我们将这项研究的探索性发现压缩为五个关于如何以及为什么的新假设，这些假设过滤了可以通过 解释的内容。这些假设涉及解决因果关系的成本、减少不和谐的多种方式、通过教学和社会方面进行深刻干预的必要性。对于未来研究中的确认试验，我们从假设中推导出了预测，并提出了关于教学因果关系的建议。开放数据供研究人员进行自己的分析。
