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Perez Cubillas, CarmeloAuthor
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Implementation and Assessment of an Intervention to Debias Adolescents against Causal Illusions

Publicated to:PLoS ONE. 8 (8): e71303- - 2013-08-14 8(8), DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071303

Authors: Barberia I; Blanco F; Cubillas C; Matute H

Affiliations

Univ Deusto, Dept Fundamentos & Metodos Psicol, Bilbao, Spain - Author
universidad de deusto - Author

Abstract

Researchers have warned that causal illusions are at the root of many superstitious beliefs and fuel many people's faith in pseudoscience, thus generating significant suffering in modern society. Therefore, it is critical that we understand the mechanisms by which these illusions develop and persist. A vast amount of research in psychology has investigated these mechanisms, but little work has been done on the extent to which it is possible to debias individuals against causal illusions. We present an intervention in which a sample of adolescents was introduced to the concept of experimental control, focusing on the need to consider the base rate of the outcome variable in order to determine if a causal relationship exists. The effectiveness of the intervention was measured using a standard contingency learning task that involved fake medicines that typically produce causal illusions. Half of the participants performed the contingency learning task before participating in the educational intervention (the control group), and the other half performed the task after they had completed the intervention (the experimental group). The participants in the experimental group made more realistic causal judgments than did those in the control group, which served as a baseline. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence-based educational intervention that could be easily implemented to reduce causal illusions and the many problems associated with them, such as superstitions and belief in pseudoscience. © 2013 Barberia et al.

Keywords
confirmationcontingency judgmentscovariationcritical thinkinginformationpowerpseudosciencepsychological-researchscienceOutcome density bias

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal PLoS ONE due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2013, it was in position 8/55, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Multidisciplinary Sciences.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 1.29. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 14, 2024)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 2.74 (source consulted: FECYT Feb 2024)
  • Field Citation Ratio (FCR) from Dimensions: 2.91 (source consulted: Dimensions May 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-05-20, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 28
  • Scopus: 37
  • Europe PMC: 16
  • Google Scholar: 51
  • OpenCitations: 32
Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-05-20:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 79.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 79 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 65.552.
  • The number of mentions on the social network Facebook: 1 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 32 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.