Can the magnitude of the belief-bias in causal reasoning be attenuated through the manipulation of content?

According to the two-stage model of causal reasoning, people automatically recruit their pre-existing beliefs when evaluating causal judgments. The current study investigates the effect of content in reducing the belief-bias effect in causal reasoning. The belief-bias was measured using the standard causal paradigm and in addition, the problems were divided equally into the following conditions: mental health, physical health, positive, and negative content. It was hypothesized that the belief-bias effect would be attenuated for the problems with negative content and mental health content because they are assumed to restrict the automatic recruitment of beliefs. This hypothesis was partially supported. It was found that the belief-bias effect was attenuated in the negative condition when compared to the positive condition, as expected. There was no difference in the magnitude of the belief-bias effect between the two health type conditions. Several explanations of the contrasting results are discussed.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b163587