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 properties or belonging to the same explanatory domain. In four experiments, we investigated whether the social desirability of knowledge about historical events and legislative proposals influences the estimation of their causal understanding (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), and whether this effect is moderated by the ability to perform controlled processing (Experiment 4). The results showed that the IOED was higher in topics whose knowledge was rated as more socially desirable (Experiment 1) and that this effect was not due to lack of familiarity or to self-enhancement bias (Experiments 2 and 3). Additionally, the ability to carry out Type-2 processing was associated with a reduction in the effect of social desirability on the IOED (Experiment 4). These findings demonstrate the importance of developing models that integrate dual processing theories in the understanding of metacognitive processes.

当人们高估他们解释自然或社会过程的因果机制的能力时，就会出现解释深度错觉 (IOED)。先前的研究将这种元认知偏见归因于混淆了对抽象因果模式的理解和对特定领域机制的理解。然而，这种解释并没有解释具有相似因果属性或属于相同解释域的主题之间 IOED 大小的差异。在四个实验中，我们调查了社会对历史事件和立法提案知识的渴望是否会影响对其因果理解的估计（实验 1、2 和 3），以及这种影响是否受到执行受控处理能力的调节（实验） 4）。结果表明，在知识被评为更符合社会需要的主题（实验 1）中，IOED 更高，并且这种影响不是由于缺乏熟悉度或自我增强偏见（实验 2 和 3）。此外，进行类型 2 处理的能力与社会期望对 IOED 的影响降低有关（实验 4）。这些发现证明了开发将双重加工理论整合到元认知过程理解中的模型的重要性。进行类型 2 处理的能力与社会期望对 IOED 的影响降低有关（实验 4）。这些发现证明了开发将双重加工理论整合到元认知过程理解中的模型的重要性。进行类型 2 处理的能力与社会期望对 IOED 的影响降低有关（实验 4）。这些发现证明了开发将双重加工理论整合到元认知过程理解中的模型的重要性。