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Results for “causality”

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PubMed1975

The effect of severity, consistency, and typicalness information on clinicians' causal attributions.

Sixty-four clinicians responded to a brief description of a depressed student by indicating the extent to which each of four possible causes contributed to the depression. The descriptions were varied systematically so that the student's depression was described as either mild or severe, typical or atypical, and as having occurred before or as never having occurred before. Results indicated greater attribution of the depression to internal causal factors when the individual's depression was described as atypical and greater attribution to stable causal factors when the depression was described as having occurred previously. When the depression was described as severe, the clinicians tended to attribute it to external unstable causes. It was suggested that clinicians may differ from other populations in some of the causal attributions that they make for psychological difficulties.

Depression↗

PubMed1989

Asbestos and kidney cancer: the evidence supports a causal association.

The role of asbestos in the etiology of lung cancer and of mesothelioma of the pleura and peritoneum has been well documented. The evidence for a causal association between asbestos and other human cancers is not as extensive but suggests that asbestos may be carcinogenic at several different sites. This paper is concerned specifically with a possible causal association between asbestos and human kidney cancer. A review of the evidence to date indicates that only three human studies have sufficient statistical power to detect an excess mortality from kidney cancer among workers exposed to asbestos. All three were occupational cohort studies, and two of these gave strong direct evidence for such an excess; a study of U.S. insulators (kidney cancer SMR = 2.22, 90% CI 1.44-3.30), and a study of U.S. asbestos products company workers (kidney cancer SMR = 2.76, 90% CI 1.29-5.18). The third study, of Italian shipyard workers, reported excess mortality from "cancers of the kidney, urinary bladder, and other urinary organs" (SMR = 1.98, 90% CI 1.42-2.70). Further support for a causal association includes studies finding asbestos fibers in human kidneys and urine, as well as reports of kidney tumors in two animal bioassays. It is concluded that asbestos should be regarded as a probable cause of human kidney cancer.

Animals↗

PubMed2006

Causal mapping as a tool to mechanistically interpret phenomena in cell motility: application to cortical oscillations in spreading cells.

Biological processes that occur at the cellular level and consist of large numbers of interacting elements are highly nonlinear and generally involve multiple time and spatial scales. The quantitative description of these complex systems is of great importance but presents large challenges. We outline a new systems biology approach, causal mapping (CMAP), which is a coarse-grained biological network tool that permits description of causal interactions between the elements of the network and overall system dynamics. On one hand, the CMAP is an intermediate between experiments and physical modeling, describing major requisite elements, their interactions and paths of causality propagation. On the other hand, the CMAP is an independent tool to explore the hierarchical organization of cell and the role of uncertainties in the system. It appears to be a promising easy-to-use technique for cell biologists to systematically probe verbally formulated qualitative hypotheses. We apply the CMAP to study the phenomenon of contractility oscillations in spreading cells in which microtubules have been depolymerized. The precise mechanism by which these oscillations are governed by a complex mechano-chemical system is not known but the data observed in experiments can be described by a CMAP. The CMAP suggests that the source of the oscillations results from the opposing effects of Rho activation leading to a decreased level of myosin light chain phosphatase and a cyclic calcium influx caused by increased membrane tension and leading to a periodically enhanced activation of myosin light chain kinase.

Animals↗

PubMed2026

Integrating Genetics and Environment to Find Causal Mechanisms for Multiple Sclerosis.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified hundreds of risk loci for multiple sclerosis (MS), but we have limited knowledge of the mechanisms through which genetic variants mediate risk. Similarly, epidemiological studies implicate numerous environmental risk factors in MS risk, but these cannot identify specific causal mechanisms. We review our current knowledge of genetic mechanisms in MS, including the critical role of expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) mapping in translating genetic risk loci into causal mechanisms. Molecular and functional context has emerged as an important missing component of these studies, and we discuss how environmental risk factors can be modelled in a quantitative genetic context to identify disease mechanisms. In parallel, we highlight recent advances in which quantitative genetic methods establish a causal role for low vitamin D and obesity in MS, and to dissect the mechanisms through which these operate. As genetic, transcriptional, and epigenetic studies continue to expand, further mechanistic insights for MS are likely to come from the integration of genetic and environmental data.

Humans↗

PubMed1987

Women's causal explanations of divorce: relationships to self-esteem and emotional distress.

The relationships of women's self-esteem and emotional distress to their causal explanations of divorce were investigated. Thirty-six women ending a first marriage were interviewed using the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (Fitts, 1965), the Ireton Personal Inventory (Ireton, 1980), and the Women's Attributions to Divorce Questionnaire. Self-esteem was associated with causal explanations characterized as internal, whereas emotional distress was related to causal explanations characterized as internal, stable, and global. The relationships occurred only in women who perceived themselves as being unable to prevent the marriage from ending. The findings support the learned helplessness model for predicting emotional distress and provide nurses with information useful in assessing mental health.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Identifiability, stratification and minimum variance estimation of causal effects.

The weakest sufficient condition for the identifiability of causal effects is the weakly ignorable treatment assignment, which implies that potential responses are independent of treatment assignment in each fine subpopulation stratified by a covariate. In this paper, we expand the independence that holds in fine subpopulations to the case that the independence may also hold in several coarse subpopulations, each of which consists of several fine subpopulations and may have overlaps with other coarse subpopulations. We first show that the identifiability of causal effects occurs if and only if the coarse subpopulations partition the whole population. We then propose a principle, called minimum variance principle, which says that the estimator possessing the minimum variance is preferred, in dealing with the stratification and the estimation of the causal effects. The simulation results with the detail programming and a practical example demonstrate that it is a feasible and reasonable way to achieve our goals.

Computer Simulation↗

PubMed1988

Confidence intervals for causal parameters.

Consider an unbiased follow-up study designed to investigate the causal effect of a dichotomous exposure on a dichotomous disease outcome. Under a deterministic outcome model, a standard '95 per cent binomial confidence interval' may fail to cover the causal parameter of interest at the nominal rate when we take the causal parameter to be a parameter associated with the observed study population (regardless of whether the observed study population was sampled from a larger superpopulation). I propose new interval estimators that, in this setting, improve upon the performance of the standard 'binomial confidence interval.'

Biometry↗

PubMed1984

The identification of alcohol problems: socioeconomic status differences in social norms and causal attributions.

It was hypothesized that the identification of abnormal behavior requires an internal causal attribution for actions that violate shared social norms. It was further hypothesized that socioeconomic status (SES) groups would differ in problem identification, due to differences in their norms and causal attribution biases. Attributions of causality for alcohol use and inferences of an alcohol problem were examined in socioeconomically different communities that differed in their social norms for alcohol consumption. For all respondents problem identification required that alcohol use be attributed to causes internal to the person. However, the lower SES sample was generally biased toward attributing alcohol use to external causes, in contrast to an "internal" bias among higher SES respondents. The latter were also more sensitive to norm violations in their problem identification. These differences led higher SES respondents to more readily identify an alcohol problem.

Adult↗

PubMed1977

Causal analysis of academic performance.

Maximum likelihood methods are presented to test for the relations between causes and effects in linear path diagrams, without assuming that estimates of causes are free of error. Causal analysis is illustrated by published data of the Equal Educational Opportunity Survey, which show that American schools do not significantly modify socioeconomic differences in academic performance and that little of the observed racial difference in academic performance is causal. For two races differing by 15 IQ points, the differential if social class were randomized would be only about 3 points. The principle is stressed that a racial effect in a causal system may be environmental and that its etiology can be studied only by analysis of family resemblance in hybrid populations.

Educational Status↗

PubMed2026

The impact for causal associations between common diseases and inflammatory bowel disease: a disease-wide bidirectional Mendelian randomization study.

OBJECTIVES: Observational studies on associations between various diseases and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are often limited by confounding and reverse causation. We aimed to assess potential causal relationships between a wide range of diseases and IBD, including Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). METHODS: We performed a comprehensive bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis of 104 common diseases and IBD traits using the generalized summary-data-based MR (GSMR) approach. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics for diseases were obtained from the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, and IBD data from the International IBD Genetics Consortium. Summary-data-based MR (SMR) integrating GWAS and expression quantitative trait locus data was applied to identify pleiotropic genes associated with IBD. RESULTS: MR analyses identified 38, 34, and 52 exposures significantly associated with IBD, UC, and CD, respectively. Childhood- and adult-onset asthma showed distinct causal effects on UC and CD. Reverse MR indicated associations between IBD traits and 15 diseases, including multiple sclerosis. SMR identified RGS14 and CARD9 as pleiotropic genes linked to IBD, suggesting shared genetic mechanisms with asthma and multiple sclerosis. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide evidence for causal links and shared immune-related genetic mechanisms underlying IBD, highlighting potential targets for future research.

Humans↗

PubMed2006

["We must relate to ourselves". Substance, causality, and narrative text].

Since Aristotle the concept of "substance" has described those features of an object which remain constant over time despite varying additional stochastic factors (coincidences). "Causality" places several or more chronological events into a direct relationship. The change of stochastic factors on a substance always has a causal justification. Based on these metaphysical considerations the present contemplations will apply the concept of substance to people. The causal explanation for changes during the lifetime is achieved by narrative sentences. These are, therefore, decisive for the maintenance of the identity of individuals and collectives despite all time-linked changes. The conclusion is reached that speech and thought processes based on speech patterns are essential for humans.

Communication↗

PubMed1990

Melting chocolate and melting snowmen: analogical reasoning and causal relations.

Children's performance in the classical a:b::c:d analogy task is traditionally very poor prior to the Piagetian stage of formal operations. The interpretation has been that the ability to reason about higher-order relations (the relations between the a:b and c:d parts of the analogy) is late-developing. However, an alternative possibility is that the relations used to date in the analogies are too difficult for younger children. Two experiments presented children aged 3, 4 and 6 years with a:b::c:d analogies which were based on relations of physical causality such as melting and cutting, for example chocolate bar:melted chocolate::snowman:melted snowman. Understanding of these particular causal relations is known to develop between the ages of 3 and 4 years. It was found that even 3-year-olds could solve the classical analogies if they understood the causal relations on which they were based.

Cacao↗

PubMed1991

Attribution of causal and moral responsibility to victims of father-daughter incest: an exploratory examination of five factors.

This study was designed to assess the extent to which victim characteristics, assault characteristics, and respondents' sex would affect attributions of causal and moral responsibility to an incest victim. The victim was either a 7- or 15-year-old child who responded in either a passive or resisting manner. The incestuous abuse involved either sexual intercourse or fondling, and either high or low levels of coercion. The subjects were undergraduate students (male = 240; female = 240) who responded to a vignette describing a sexual interaction between a father and daughter. The results indicate that significantly more causal and moral responsibility was attributed to the victim in cases where the victim responded passively. A breakdown of the significant form of responsibility x victim age x coerciveness interaction revealed a significant main effect for form of responsibility; significantly more causal (as opposed to moral) responsibility was attributed to the victim. The simple main effects for victim age were significant in all cases except for the moral responsibility, high coercion condition; and the simple main effects for coercion were significant in all cases except for the moral responsibility, 7-year-old victim condition. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for public education and future research.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1985

Causal links between plasma and CSF endorphin levels in stress: vector-ARMA analysis.

To explore causal links between vital sign responses and immunoreactive beta-endorphin ("i-BE") rises in blood and CSF during ovine endotoxin stress, we analyzed concurrent i-BE levels in these two compartments by a "vector-ARMA" (= autoregressive moving average) method. This technique--widely used for modeling in other applications--has not to our knowledge been employed to study dynamic relationships of neuropeptides. Log-transformed i-BE levels were first "filtered" by repeated observations ANOVA to confirm significance of rises in both compartments. Next, vector-ARMA methodology was applied to derive an optimal causal model of vital sign changes and i-BE entry into plasma vs. CSF pools. The model indicated that reflux of i-BE from blood into CSF contributed to increases in CSF levels of this hormone. This novel application to neuroendocrinology of this approach illustrates its utility in evaluating changes in one or more neuropeptide levels in multiple compartments to indicate potentially causal relationships.

Animals↗

PubMed1988

Predictive validity in human causal judgement and Pavlovian conditioning.

This paper first reviews the research on predictive validity in animal conditioning, and the informational theories deriving from this research. The major section of the paper examines the role of predictive validity, and thus the applicability of informational theories, in two major human learning paradigms: causal judgement and Pavlovian conditioning. There is more empirical support for informational theories in the causal judgement literature than in the conditioning literature. It is argued that judgement of predictive or causal relationships in humans is governed by processes similar to those governing conditioning in animals, and that the question of whether the same processes operate in human conditioning has not yet been adequately tested. Such a test would require joint measurement of predictive judgements and conditioned responding in a design which manipulates predictive validity independently of contiguity; it may also require a task which explicitly or implicitly restricts predictive judgements to the experimentally designated stimuli.

Animals↗

PubMed1983

Conceptual/operational criteria of causality: relevance to systematic epidemiologic theory.

Emphasis has recently been placed on the possibility of developing "unified" criteria of causality applicable to both the infectious and chronic, non-infectious diseases. Yet, contemporary efforts are essentially compilations of criteria established over the past 140 years, without provision of the conceptual basis allowing such a unification. From hierarchical views of the natural history of infectious and neoplastic (i.e., chronic non-infectious) disease, it is possible to identify discipline and natural history-related concepts of causation from which it is possible to derive conceptual criteria of causality and complementary operational criteria of causality. These criteria are entirely relevant to the comprehension of disease as both product and process and applicable to both the infectious and neoplastic diseases.

Chronic Disease↗

PubMed1994

Does mood-congruence or causal search govern recall bias? A test of life event recall.

Recall bias has been hypothesized to occur as a function of mood congruence or causal-search related mechanisms. This study tested whether either mechanism related to recall of stressful life events over a year. Respondents consisted of 136 cases suffering from chronic facial pain and 131 acquaintance controls. After reporting life events for 1 year at monthly intervals, respondents attempted to recall these same events at year-end. Mood and likelihood of engaging in causal search were also ascertained at year-end. Results showed no effect of mood congruence or causal search on recall of event occurrence. However, mood did influence subjective appraisal of those events that were recalled. In addition, a significant mood-related memory deficit was detected. Findings indicate that mood-related memory deficit may reduce effect sizes artifactually. Furthermore, when assessing effects of recall bias, recall of event occurrence must be considered separately from subjective appraisal of event characteristics.

Affect↗

PubMed1994

A causal and temporal reasoning model and its use in drug therapy applications.

Superficial knowledge about drug effects and interactions may provide clinicians with only a limited support for the elaboration of therapy plans. Deeper knowledge of the mechanisms through which drugs produce their effects, together with their temporal constraints, should be modelled to predict the effects and interactions of their joint administration. The present paper describes a method for modelling such deep medical knowledge, together with its causal and temporal reasoning capabilities, and compares it with classical approaches to temporal and causal reasoning, namely in the context of drug treatment applications. This method extends a previous causal functional model by allowing the representation of quantitative knowledge, the explicit representation of time intervals, and a temporal reasoning technique, Simulation by Interval Constraining. The method is illustrated by a number of examples of basic drug metabolic mechanisms; and its future use in the development of decision support systems for complex drug therapy applications is discussed.

Artificial Intelligence↗