The invisible hand as an intuitive sociological explanation

Abstract

An invisible-hand explanation explains a situation as the outcome of individual actions, without individuals intending the situation. Invisible-hand explanations have been used for decades to account for all kinds of phenomena, from segregation to traffic norms. But, they have not been studied cognitively and empirically as an intuitive explanation type. We propose and show that US-based adults intuitively prefer invisible-hand over intentional-design explanations. We first validate pairs of explanations as equally likely to cause a social phenomenon (Exp 1). We then show that given that social phenomenon, participants prefer an invisible-hand to an intentional-design explanation, and that the preference for invisible-hand explanations is also negatively linked to conspiratorial beliefs. (Exp 2). We find that when participants are asked to come up with explanations themselves, they are equally fast to come up with invisible-hand or intentional-design explanations (Exp 3), but that both they and other participants prefer the participant-generated invisible hand explanations (Exp 3 and 4). We conclude that US-based adults likely have a prior preference for invisible-hand explanations for social phenomena.