Two interesting studies on the illusion of causality:
In the USA, 54% of the population believes in psychic healing and 36% believe in telepathy (Newport & Strausberg, 2001). In Europe, the statistics are not too different. According to the Special Eurobarometer on Science and Technology (European Commission, 2005), and just to mention a few examples, a high percentage of Europeans consider homeopathy (34%) and horoscopes (13%) to be good science
The illusion of causality in this case arises from very simple intuitions based on coincidences: “I take the pill. I happen to feel better. Therefore, it works.”
It seems to me that many managers suffer from the same problem. For instance, someone has been working as a manager for a long time, the companies where he works see a significant increase in revenue and number of clients, and the person thinks that it is his work that has led to these results. “Post hoc ergo propter hoc”, thinks the manager:
“since I conduct regular 1-1s and demand the same from managers, it is precisely for this reason that the company’s product is developing”.
The ability to think rationally worsens because this illusion of causality the person has is further reinforced by the company’s results and praise/bonuses the manager gets.
And then you ask the person: ‘why do you think a certain principle is correct?’ or ‘why do you think a certain practice has more advantages than disadvantages in this context?’, and the person says ‘it worked for me and brought a lot of profit to the company’.
When you ask how the model is constructed, within which he determines the positive influence of this particular practice on the overall result, the answer will always be the same — ‘just think about it’ or ‘my experience shows’.
When you ask if perhaps the person is using ready-made knowledge from some scientific field, you get the answer ‘there is no scientific method in this field. … citing scientific articles is frankly absurd’.”
It’s always quite disheartening to observe the influence of this particular aspect of our thinking, but it’s even more sad to see the unwillingness to understand it.