5. Cause and Consequence Flashcards
TEST
What are causes?
A reason for an action or condition; something (or someone) that brings about an effect or a result
What are direct causes?
Causes of a particular event, action or situation that seem to be direct and/or obvious (i.e. the “final dominoes”).
What are underlying causes?
Causes of a particular event, action or situation that seem to be indirect and/or (more) hidden (i.e. the “earlier dominoes”)
What are consequences?
something produced by a cause
What are immediate consequences?
Consequences that occur immediately and directly as a result of a specific action, event, or situation.
What are long-term consequences?
Consequences that occur later in time and not so obviously as a result of a specific action, event, or situation.
What do unappreciated causes mean?
Although some causes for a historical event are more significant than others, it is important to understand that events rarely have a single cause (or even just a few causes).
Most often, events in history occur due to a number of different causes (some “big”, some “small” that build off each other).
In fact, there are often causes for events that have been overlooked by past historians.
How do the unappreciated causal events explain how historical significance?
Prior events may have no influence on causing subsequent events (i.e. just because “A” happened before “B”, doesn’t mean “B” was caused by “A”)
How do you determine the importance of causes?
Evidence of a causal connection. Is the cause clearly connected with the event and not just a coincidence? If this factor were removed, how likely is it that the event would still have occurred?
Degree of influence. To what extent did the cause contribute to the direction and intensity of the event or make other causes more or less important?
Absence of alternative explanations. Is there no reason to suspect that some other factor, closely aligned with the suggested causal factor, can explain the outcome?
How do you determine the importance of consequence?
Depth of impact: How deeply felt or profound was the consequence?
Breadth of impact: How widespread were its impacts?
Duration of impact: How long-lasting was the consequence?
Events result from…
the interplay of two types of factors: (1) historical actors, who are people (individuals or groups) who take actions that cause historical events, and (2) the social, political, economic and cultural conditions within which the actors operate.
How do unintended consequences come to be?
Historical actors cannot always predict the effect of conditions, opposing actions, and unforeseen reactions. They have the effect of generating unintended consequences.
