Out of the blue: on the suddenness of perceived chance events

Autor: Karl Halvor Teigen, Alf Børre Kanten
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Thinking & Reasoning. 29:137-175
ISSN: 1464-0708
1354-6783
DOI: 10.1080/13546783.2022.2047105
Popis: People commonly use terms like ‘random’, ‘by chance’, or ‘accidentally’ when they describe occurrences that sidestep the normal course of events, with no apparent causal link to ongoing activities. Such intrusive events are typically perceived as happening all of a sudden. This was demonstrated in seven experiments (N=1299) by asking people to identify statements they believed belonged to stories about chanc events, and by comparing chance vs. nonchance events from their own life and from the lives of others. Suddenness also appeared to be more strongly associated with beginnings than with endings of an episode. Thus, statements about sudden beginnings of a career or a relationship were more readily believed to happen ‘by chance’ than ‘not by chance’. But life-changing events did not become more accidental simply by being placed in the beginning of a ‘life chapter’. These studies highlight a central but neglected feature of perceived randomness.
Databáze: OpenAIRE