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A Knobe Effect for Belief Ascriptions

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Abstract

Knobe (Analysis 63:190-193, 2003a, Philosophical Psychology 16:309-324, 2003b, Analysis 64:181-187, 2004b) found that people are more likely to attribute intentionality to agents whose actions resulted in negative side-effects that to agents whose actions resulted in positive ones. Subsequent investigation has extended this result to a variety of other folk psychological attributions. The present article reports experimental findings that demonstrate an analogous effect for belief ascriptions. Participants were found to be more likely to ascribe belief, higher degrees of belief, higher degrees of rational belief, and dispositional belief to agents in central Knobe effect cases who bring about negative side-effects than to agents who bring about positive ones. These findings present a significant challenge to widely held views about the Knobe effect, since many explanations of it assume that agents in contrasting pairs of Knobe effect cases do not differ with respect to their beliefs. Participants were also found to be more confident that knowledge should be attributed than they were that belief or dispositional belief should be attributed. This finding strengthens the challenge that Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel (2013) have launched against the traditional view that knowledge entails belief.

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Notes

  1. Additional studies (e.g., Cova and Naar 2013) have uncovered a similar effect with means rather than side-effects.

  2. Cf., e.g., Hindriks (2008); Knobe (2004a, 2006); Knobe and Burra (2006); Leslie et al. (2006); Doris et al. (2007); Knobe and Doris (2010); Nadelhoffer (2004a, b, 2006); Machery (2008); McCann (2005); Mele (2006); Mele and Cushman (2007); Cushman and Mele (2007); Pettit and Knobe (2009); Sverdlik (2004).

  3. Italics did not appear in the research materials and are used here only for purposes of explanation.

  4. Environment: Mann–Whitney U = 1843, p < 0.01, r = -0.25. Movies: U = 568.5, p < 0.01, r = -0.31. Sales: U = 919.5, p > 0.05, r = -0.02. Nazi: U = 651, p < 0.05, r = -0.23. All significance tests two-tailed. Pairwise tests of statistical significance were used instead of a two-way ANOVA because the differences between ENVIRONMENT, MOVIES, SALES, and NAZI render them separate pairs of cases more than different levels of a common independent variable.

  5. The apparent size of a given Knobe effect has been shown to depend in part upon the kind of prompt question participants are asked. For example, Beebe and Jensen (2012, secs. 1–2) found small effect sizes when using 7-point Likert scales but large effect sizes when using forced-choice formats, even though other features of the experimental materials were held constant.

  6. Environment: Mann–Whitney U = 221, p < 0.001, r = -0.71. Movies: t (55) = 2.81, p < 0.001, r = 0.35. Sales: t (49) = 2.12, p < 0.05, r = 0.29. Nazi: t (75) = 1.07, p > 0.05, r = 0.12. Independent samples t-tests were used for the latter three cases because the data distributions more closely approximate normal distributions.

  7. Mean male response in positive conditions: 0.52. Mean female response in positive conditions: 0.24. Male negative mean: 0.92. Female negative mean: 0.38. F(1, 215) = 3.418, p = 0.066, partial η 2 = 0.016.

  8. Of course, the information deleted from NAZI was not hindsight information in the same sense as in the other cases, but it was deleted for the sake of consistency.

  9. Environment: Mann–Whitney U = 429.5, p < 0.001, r = -0.46. Movies: U = 428.5, p < 0.001, r = -0.42. Sales: U = 387, p < 0.001, r = -0.5. Nazi: U = 462.5, p < 0.001, r = -0.46.

  10. Due to the large number of significant differences, no brackets with asterisks were used to indicate these differences in Fig. 4 in order to keep the graph from becoming too cluttered.

  11. Environment: F(1, 67) = 6.542, p < 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.089. Movies: F(1, 72) = 1.150, p > 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.016. Sales: F(1, 71) = 6.933, p < 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.089. Nazi: F(1, 71) = 5.369, p < 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.070.

  12. Environment: F(1, 67) = 50.801, p < 0.001, partial η 2 = 0.431. Movies: F (1, 72) = 18.220, p < 0.001, partial η 2 = 0.202. Sales: F(1, 71) = 0.822, p > 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.011. Nazi: F(1, 71) = 11.088, p < 0.01, partial η 2 = 0.135.

  13. F(1, 71) = 4.910, p < 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.065

  14. I did not represent significant differences from uniformity (i.e., an even 33.3 % split across all three categories), since such differences would not be theoretically meaningful.

  15. Two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov D = 0.0588, p > 0.05.

  16. The percentages in the first two groups also differed significantly from that of the third group, but since these differences are theoretically inconsequential, I did not represent them in Fig. 6.

  17. Two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov D = 0.1690, p < 0.05.

  18. F(1, 84) = 7.488, p < 0.01, partial η 2 = 0.082.

  19. F(1, 87) = 1.526, p > 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.017.

  20. Environment: F(1, 57) = 3.665, p = 0.061, partial η 2 = 0.060. Movies: F(1, 56) = 0.113, p > 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.002. Sales: F(1, 58) = 2.258, p > 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.037. Nazi F(1, 56) = 6.178, p < 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.099.

  21. Due to the large number of significant differences, no brackets with asterisks were used to indicate these differences in Fig. 9 in order to keep the graph from becoming too cluttered.

  22. Environment: F(1, 57) = 13.532, p < 0.01, partial η 2 = 0.192. Movies: F(1, 56) = 10.690, p < 0.01, partial η 2 = 0.160. Sales: F(1, 58) = 0.744, p > 0.05, partial η 2 = 0.013. Nazi F(1, 56) = 27.034, p < 0.01, partial η 2 = 0.153.

  23. This difference, however, failed to reach statistical significance. Two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov D = 0.0818., p > 0.05.

  24. Two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov D = 0.0684, p > 0.05.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Maria Capolupo, Sean Carey, Mattias Carosella, Phillip Collins, Danielle Curtin, Rachel Pazda, Jordan Pirdy, and Paul Poenicke who served as research assistants on this project. Thanks also to Mark Alfano, two anonymous reviewers at The Review of Philosophy and Psychology, and audience members at Eindhoven University of Technology and the 2012 meeting of the Society for Exact Philosophy for helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

    James R. Beebe

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Beebe, J.R. A Knobe Effect for Belief Ascriptions. Rev.Phil.Psych. 4, 235–258 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-013-0132-9

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