Plausibility judgment of causally related social events: Impact of conceptual coherence and word-coherence

The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of two factors: concept-coherence and word-coherence on plausibility judgments attached to two types of causal explanations of social behaviors (internal vs. external attributions). Concept-coherence was defined by the strength and the nature of the link inferred between two parts of sentences. After selecting self-generated sentences from a pilot study, the strength of the causal link inferred based on individual measures was estimated. The word-coherence corresponded to the frequency with which a given explanation was produced, split into high versus low frequency of word used. Participants were then tested on a judgment plausibility task manipulating these two factors. Results showed that sentences were more often judged plausible when the strength of the link as well as the explanation frequency were high. A second study examined whether these results would change depending on a third type of coherence: the locus of the attributed cause (internal or external). Results revealed that plausibility judgments of causal explanations no longer vary as a function of word-coherence. Concept-coherence had a strong, yet different impact depending on the locus of the cause: internal causal explanations were more often deemed plausible than external explanations, especially when concept-coherence was low. The mitigated role of word-coherence and the implications of the effect of locus for understanding plausibility judgments in social contexts are discussed.