Thinking fast and biased: intuitive thinking style is associated with the illusion of causality

Abstract

The illusion of causality is a cognitive bias in which individuals believe that a potential cause produces an outcome even when the contingency between the two is null. Although no definitive theoretical explanation has been established for this bias, it has been linked to heuristic or associative processes that operate automatically and rely on intuition rather than deliberate reasoning. In this paper, we present two pre-registered studies examining the relationship between intuitive–deliberate thinking styles and the causal illusion. In Experiment 1, consistent with previous findings, we did not observe a significant association between the variables. However, a re-analysis revealed that participants displaying extreme response patterns (i.e., introducing the target cause in all trials) accounted for this result. Consequently, Experiment 2 addressed this issue by controlling the exposure to cause-present and cause-absent trials, eventually producing the expected pattern: the illusion was positively associated with intuitive thinking styles (Close-Minded Thinking, Preference for Intuitive Thinking) and negatively associated with a deliberate style (Actively Open-Minded Thinking).