Illusion of explanatory depth and social desirability of historical knowledge

The Illusion of Explanatory Depth (IOED) occurs when people overestimate their ability to explain the causal mechanisms of natural or social processes. Prior research has attributed this metacognitive bias to confounding the understanding of abstract causal patterns with the comprehension of domain-specific mechanisms. However, this explanation does not account for the differences in the magnitude of IOED among topics with similar causal...