Ch. 12

Question 1

People tend to attribute their successes to internal factors and their failures to external causes.

Answer 1

Self-serving

Question 2

Involve the behaviors of organizations, industries, economies, and societies. Studied by social scientists.

Answer 2

Maco-behavioral problems

Question 3

When explaining the behavior of others, people use distinctiveness, consistency, and consensus data.

Answer 3

Covariation model

Question 4

A formal pattern or general principle that explains the outcome of an event. Typified by scientific laws.

Answer 4

Functional cause

Question 5

Failure to adjust fallible test results in light of the low base rate of a suspected cause.

Answer 5

Base rate neglect

Question 6

Had a heart attack from over exception. Underlying cause: had a heart attack because he had a bad heart.

Answer 6

Precipitating cause

Question 7

Collecting data, perhaps by inspecting the system or talking with operators.

Answer 7

Information gathering

Question 8

They assume that others in the same situation would behave as they do.

Answer 8

False consensus effect

Question 9

History, mortality, selection bias, and reactance, among others.

Answer 9

Threats to validity

Question 10

Using available information and experiential knowledge to identify possible causes.

Answer 10

Hypothesis generation

Question 11

The goal, end, or purpose of an action. Often used to account for human behavior.

Answer 11

Purposive cause

Question 12

Variables can be correlated because a third factor influences both.

Answer 12

Confusing correlation with causation

Question 13

Causes that have little real influence.

Answer 13

Trivial causes

Question 14

Comparing case specific evidence with hypothesis-based expectations.

Answer 14

Misevaluating hypotheses

Question 15

Won a football game and winning football team is thinking that they put in a lot of effort while the losing team used external causes like bad refs or weather to explain their loss.

Answer 15

Self-serving

Question 16

A sporadic source of variation that results from changes or incidental events.

Answer 16

Special cause

Question 17

Cause and effect are often assumed to be similar in magnitude and appearance. This cue is often misleading.

Answer 17

Similarity

Question 18

The thing or factor that is responsible for or explains the outcome.

Answer 18

Cause

Question 19

Rejecting a true hypothesis

Answer 19

Type 1 error

Question 20

Taken for granted beliefs aren’t questioned

Answer 20

Mistaken assumptions

Question 21

Only considering two possible causes

Answer 21

Binary thinking

Question 22

X came before Y, so X must have caused Y.

Answer 22

Post hoc fallacy

Question 23

Why did the board split? Because it is cedar and its is weak.

Answer 23

Essential cause

Question 24

Assuming one has more influence on events than is actually the case.

Answer 24

Illusion of control

Question 25

What caused the dent on the roof of your car? a baseball.

Answer 25

Generative cause

Question 26

Favoring or opposing certain hypotheses, perhaps out of self-interest.

Answer 26

Biased evaluation

Question 27

Cause and effect tend to covary, being mutually present or absent under different circumstances. This cue is useful, but fallible.

Answer 27

Statistical correlation

Question 28

If your skin is yellow (jaundice), you are drinking too much.

Answer 28

Similarity

Question 29

Relatively observable effects are called...

Answer 29

Symptoms

Question 30

Test with enough care that you can rely on the results.

Answer 30

Sloppy tests of hypotheses

Question 31

A tendency to confirm existing beliefs

Answer 31

Confirmation bias

Question 32

Why have gas prices gone down? Supply and demand.

Answer 32

Functional cause

Question 33

Involve the behaviors of individuals and small groups. Studied by psychologists.

Answer 33

Micro-behavioral problems

Question 34

Collecting additional information, perhaps through experimentation, to differentiate among viable causal candidates.

Answer 34

Hypothesis testing

Question 35

The task of determining the cause of a problem.

Answer 35

Diagnosis

Question 36

Represent fundamental ways of explaining things.

Answer 36

Aristotelian types

Question 37

the underlying cause that is the most basic reason for a problem's existence

Answer 37

Root cause

Question 38

These reflect the fact that causes can be more or less closely connected to their effects in space and time.

Answer 38

Proximity distinctions

Question 39

When people explain the behavior of others in terms of internal dispositions while ignoring external situational factors that may be more influential.

Answer 39

Fundamental Attribution error

Question 40

Enablements, normal, to-be-expected factors that are less active than causes; they may be equally necessary for the occurrence of an effect.

Answer 40

Conditions

Question 41

An account of how people develop causal explanations of social phenomena

Answer 41

Attribution theory

Question 42

A cause that is somewhat removed, in space and time, from its effects.

Answer 42

Remote or Underlying cause

Question 43

Faulty implementation yields misleading conclusions.

Answer 43

Experimentation errors

Question 44

Trying to understand or make sense out of the data.

Answer 44

Interpretation

Question 45

Causes necessarily precede their effects in time. This cue is perfectly valid, though not very informative.

Answer 45

Temporal order

Question 46

Since causality isn't magic, cause and effect must be connected through space and time for causal influence to be transmitted. Disease vectors identified by medical scientists express this contiguity.

Answer 46

Space/time contiguity

Question 47

An enduring source of variation that derives from the way a process is designed.

Answer 47

Common cause

Question 48

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Answer 48

People are the cause and guns are the condition or enabler

Question 49

We reach too far in constructing causal accounts.

Answer 49

Over-interpretation

Question 50

Why did the car break down? The car belt broke.

Answer 50

Proximity cause

Question 51

Accepting mistaken hypotheses

Answer 51

Type 2 error

Question 52

Considering only one hypothesis

Answer 52

Unary thinking

Question 53

Explaining events in terms of non-existent hidden purposes.

Answer 53

Pathetic Fallacy

Question 54

Assuming that causation is simple

Answer 54

Minimum causation

Question 55

The triggering event at sets off or produces an effect.

Answer 55

precipitating cause

Question 56

A cause that occurs close, in space and time, to its effects.

Answer 56

Proximate cause

Question 57

The thing or activity that produces an effect. The most widely used notion of causality.

Answer 57

Generative cause

Question 58

Saw a guy kick a dog and assume he beats his wife and he's a bad guy. You see him at the bus stop and confront him. He said he felt bad and that his wife left him, his kids are on drugs, and he came out of the store and stepped in dog shit. You don't know what they've been through.

Answer 58

Fundamental Attribution Error

Question 59

The essential nature or properties of a thing that explain related events and outcomes.

Answer 59

Essential cause