Eronen, Markus (2018) Causal Discovery and the Problem of Psychological Interventions. In: UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

Finding causes is a central goal in psychological research. In this paper, I argue that the search for psychological causes faces great obstacles, drawing from the interventionist theory of causation. First, psychological interventions are likely to be both fat-handed and soft, and there are currently no conceptual tools for making causal inferences based on such interventions. Second, holding possible confounders fixed seems to be realistically possible only at the group level, but group-level findings do not allow inferences to individual-level causal relationships. I also consider the implications of these problems, as well as possible ways forward for psychological research.

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Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Eronen, Markus m.i.eronen@rug.nl
Keywords:	intervention; causation; psychology; discovery
Subjects:	General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	Dr. Markus Eronen
Date Deposited:	30 Oct 2018 14:56
Last Modified:	30 Oct 2018 14:56
Item ID:	15224
Subjects:	General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Psychology
Date:	2018
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15224

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