Research Article When Is a Cause the ‘‘Same’’? Coherent Generalization Across Contexts

ABSTRACT—Two competing psychological approaches to causal learningmake different predictions regardingwhat aspect of perceived causality is generalized across con-texts. Two experiments tested these predictions. In one experiment, the task required a judgment regarding the existence of a simple causal relation; in the other, the task required a judgment regarding the existence of an inter-action between a candidate cause and unobserved back-ground causes. The task materials did not mention assess-ments of causal strength. Results indicate that causal power (Cartwright, 1989; Cheng, 1997) is the mental construct that people carry from one context to another. Judgments about cause-and-effect relations occur in contexts that are like rivers—one never steps into the same context twice. Generalization from one context to another is therefore para