Causal uncertainty and correction of judgements

We examined whether raising uncertainty about the causes of one's judgments motivates correction. Specifically, we examined whether activating chronically accessible causal uncertainty (CU) beliefs with a conditional warning about possible bias enhances correction of weather judgments for tropi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of experimental social psychology Vol. 39; no. 5; p. 516
Main Authors Vaughn, Leigh Ann, Gifford Weary
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published San Diego Academic Press 01.09.2003
Subjects
Causality
Cognition & reasoning
Uncertainty
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Summary:We examined whether raising uncertainty about the causes of one's judgments motivates correction. Specifically, we examined whether activating chronically accessible causal uncertainty (CU) beliefs with a conditional warning about possible bias enhances correction of weather judgments for tropical weather primes and of word frequency judgments for the availability bias. In two studies we showed that activating chronic beliefs led to careful correction of target judgments. Moreover, Study 2 revealed that chronically high-CU individuals who received a conditional warning felt more uncertain than did other participants, but that this uncertainty was suppressed somewhat by adjusting for the bias. Results are discussed in light of recent models of judgment correction (e.g., [Wegener and Petty, 1997]), and the causal uncertainty model ( [Weary and Edwards, 1996]). [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:0022-1031
1096-0465