In the CCR Lab, we investigate how people’s beliefs influence the way they reason and make decisions. We explore causal beliefs and beliefs about categories. Our research looks at real-world issues and uses interdisciplinary approaches to understanding cognitive processing. Below is a sampling of recent research projects in the lab.

Illusions of causal understanding
People often do not hold well fleshed out causal explanations for the world around them, despite thinking that they do. This illusion of explanatory depth is a well established phenomenon that we have tested in multiple domains (Marsh & Vitriol, 2018; Vitriol & Marsh, 2018, 2021; Zeveney & Marsh, 2016). We are following up on this work in multiple ways:

• How does learning you do not understand a phenomenon influence your perceived understanding of other phenomena? (Collaborator: Julie Wilson)
• How does generating an explanation for phenomena that seem unbelievable (e.g., incorrect scientific explanations) change how a person thinks they understand those phenomena ? (Collaborator: Joe Vitriol)
• When a person learns they do not understand, how does that change their beliefs about the greater community of knowledge? (Collaborator: Madie Schulte)

Using causal knowledge to improve decision making
Guidance for everyday decision-making is often steeped in the language of causality. For example, people are told that exercise can prevent disease, while unhealthy eating can cause disease onset. We have been exploring how providing people with causal models can help people make better decisions (Kleinberg, Alay, & Marsh, 2022; Kleinberg & Marsh, 2020; Zheng, Marsh, Nickerson, & Kleinberg, 2020). We are continuing to explore questions like:

• What is a too complicated causal model for people to use in decision making? (Collaborator: Samantha Kleinberg)
• How can we provide physicians with their patients’ causal beliefs to improve shared decision-making? (Collaborator: Samantha Kleinberg & Onur Asan)

Decision making in context
Mental health symptoms present in the rich context of a person’s life. We have explored how experts and laypeople are influenced by this contextual information when determining if someone is experiencing a mental illness. Both experts (De Los Reyes & Marsh, 2011) and laypeople (Marsh, De Los Reyes, & Wallerstein, 2014; Marsh, Burke, & De Los Reyes, 2016) are greatly influenced by such information. We are interested in further exploring:

• How can the influence of context be minimized in order to provide more accurate diagnoses?(Collaborator: Andres De Los Reyes)
• How does the context surrounding diagnosis influence other reasoning elements, such as memory for information relevant to categorization?