The Revision of Beliefs about Causes and Enabling Conditions

We argue that propositions about causes differ in meaning from those about enabling conditions: with a cause the effect is necessary, whereas with an enabler it is possible. But, the salient mental model is the same for both. We report an experiment that tested this difference in a study of belief revision. The results showed that causes and enabling conditions are revised differently. On trials in which participants encountered information consistent with an earlier interpretation, most of them maintained their belief in a particular enabling condition whereas only half of the participants maintained their belief in a particular cause. On trials in which they encountered information inconsistent with an earlier interpretation, just over half of them switched their belief in a particular enabling condition whereas the majority of participants maintained their belief in a particular cause. We discuss the results with reference to theories of causality.