The more, the merrier: Treatment frequency influences effectiveness perception and further treatment choice
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The more, the merrier: Treatment frequency influences effectiveness perception and further treatment choice Itxaso Barberia 1 & Fernando Blanco 2 & Javier Rodríguez-Ferreiro 3 Accepted: 15 October 2020 # The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2020
Abstract Causal illusions have been postulated as cognitive mediators of pseudoscientific beliefs, which, in turn, might lead to the use of pseudomedicines. However, while the laboratory tasks aimed to explore causal illusions typically present participants with information regarding the consequences of administering a fictitious treatment versus not administering any treatment, real-life decisions frequently involve choosing between several alternative treatments. In order to mimic these realistic conditions, participants in two experiments received information regarding the rate of recovery when each of two different fictitious remedies were administered. The fictitious remedy that was more frequently administered was given higher effectiveness ratings than the lowfrequency one, independent of the absence or presence of information about the spontaneous recovery rate. Crucially, we also introduced a novel dependent variable that involved imagining new occasions in which the ailment was present and asking participants to decide which treatment they would opt for. The inclusion of information about the base rate of recovery significantly influenced participants’ choices. These results imply that the mere prevalence of popular treatments might make them seem particularly effective. It also suggests that effectiveness ratings should be interpreted with caution as they might not accurately reflect real treatment choices. Materials and datasets are available at the Open Science Framework [https://osf.io/fctjs/]. Keywords Contingency learning . Causal illusion . Illusory correlation . Illusion of causality . Cue-density effect . Pseudomedicines . Pseudoscience
Introduction When faced with a health issue, individuals must choose a treatment approach. Previous studies have identified patients’ values and belief systems, along with education level and health status, as significant predictors of treatment selection (Astin, 1998). However, cognitive phenomena underlying (inadequate) treatment choice have been frequently overlooked. * Javier Rodríguez-Ferreiro [email protected] 1
Departament de Cognició, Desenvolupament i Psicologia de l’Educació, Institut de Neurociències, Universitat de Barcelona, Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron, 171, Barcelona 08035, Spain
2
Departamento de Psicología Social, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Granada, Campus Universitario de Cartuja, Granada 18071, Spain
3
Grup de Recerca en Cognició i Llenguatge, Departament de Cognició, Desenvolupament i Psicologia de l’Educació, Institut de Neurociències, Universitat de Barcelona, Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron, 171, Barcelona 08035, Spain
Causal illusions are defined as the “perception of a causal relationship between events that are actually unrelated” (Matute et al., 2015, p. 1), one of th
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