Causal Stories

Story 1

Lauren and Jane work for the same company. They each need to use a computer for work sometimes. Unfortunately, the computer isn't very powerful. If two people are logged on at the same time, it usually crashes. So the company decided to institute an official policy. It declared that Lauren would be the only one permitted to use the computer in the mornings and that Jane would be the only one permitted to use the computer in the afternoons. As expected, Lauren logged on the computer the next day at 9:00 am. But Jane decided to disobey the official policy. She also logged on at 9:00 am. The computer crashed immediately.

Question

Did Jane cause the computer to crash?

Majority Answer: Yes

Answer distribution over 25 people:

P(Yes): 0.92 P(No): 0.08

Is Ambiguous: False

Factor

These are the factors and their attributes present in this story.

Norm Type: Prescriptive Norm

Causal Structure: Conjunctive

Action Omission: Action

Event Normality: Abnormal

Time: Same Time Cause