Psychological Development and Education ›› 2004, Vol. 20 ›› Issue (1): 12-17.

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The Influence of Beliefs and Covariation in Causal Reasoning

HU Qing-fen, LIN Chong-de   

  1. Development Psychology Institute of Beijing Normal University
  • Online:2004-01-15 Published:2004-01-15

Abstract: The persent study investigated how subjects of three different ages use covariation information and pre-existing belifs in causal reasoning.The results were as follows: (1) The effect of covariation information is much bigger when subjects have no pre-existing beliefs about the problem.(2) Older subjects emhpasis covariation information more than younger subjects in their causal reasoning.(3) The effect of ΔP is not linear.Subjects change their judgements when it increases uo to some thresholds.

Key words: covariation, pre-existing beliefs

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