When People Explain Difficult Actions,is the Causal Question How or Why?

Abstract

Recent research shows that the framing of causal questions influences the choice of goals and preconditions as explanations of actions. However, research has not examined participants’ judgments as to which causal questions are most relevant to explain actions. Study 1 examined which question (“why” or “how”) participants would use to gain information to help them explain actions that required substantial preconditions. As a measure of difficulty (obstruction), the target actors were defined as rich, poor, or unspecified groups. Actions performed by rich people elicited more “why” questions and goal explanations, whereas actions performed by poor people elicited more “how” questions and precondition explanations. The second study examined the effects of causal questions on explanations, using colloquial causal questions in addition to those used in previous research. The findings indicate that the difficulty of an action for social groups influences causal questions, which in turn predict preferred explanations.