Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T18:30:48.858Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The inherence heuristic: A basis for psychological essentialism?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2014

Susan A. Gelman
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043gelman@umich.eduhttp://sitemaker.umich.edu/gelman.lab/home
Meredith Meyer
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, Otterbein University, Westerville, OH 43081-2004. mmeyer@otterbein.edu

Abstract

Cimpian & Salomon (C&S) provide evidence that psychological essentialism rests on a domain-general attention to inherent causes. We suggest that the inherence heuristic may itself be undergirded by a more foundational cognitive bias, namely, a realist assumption about environmental regularities. In contrast, when considering specific representations, people may be more likely to activate attention to non-inherent, contingent, and historical links.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atran, S. (1998) Folk biology and the anthropology of science: Cognitive universals and cultural particulars. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21:547609.Google Scholar
Carey, S. (2009) The origin of concepts. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cimpian, A. & Markman, E. M. (2009) Information learned from generic language becomes central to children's biological concepts: Evidence from their open-ended explanations. Cognition 113:1425.Google Scholar
Frazier, B. N., Gelman, S. A. & Wellman, H. M. (2009) Preschoolers' search for explanatory information within adult–child conversation. Child Development 80:1592–611.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friedman, O., Van de Vondervoort, J. W., Defeyter, M. A. & Neary, K. R. (2013) First possession, history, and young children's ownership judgments. Child Development 84:1519–25.Google Scholar
Gelman, S. A. (2003) The essential child: Origins of essentialism in everyday thought. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gelman, S. A., Manczak, E. M. & Noles, N. S. (2012) The nonobvious basis of ownership: Preschool children trace the history and value of owned Objects. Child Development 83:1732–47.Google Scholar
Gelman, S. A., Ware, E. A. & Kleinberg, F. (2010) Effects of generic language on category content and structure. Cognitive Psychology 61:273301.Google Scholar
Gelman, S. A. & Waxman, S. R. (2009) Response to Sloutsky: Taking development seriously: Theories cannot emerge from associations alone. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 13:332–33.Google Scholar
Gopnik, A. & Schulz, L. (2004) Mechanisms of theory formation in young children. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8:371–77.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1994) The language instinct: How the mind creates language. William Morrow.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhodes, M., Leslie, S. J. & Tworek, C. M. (2012) Cultural transmission of social essentialism. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109:13526–31.Google Scholar
Sloutsky, V. M. & Fisher, A. V (2008) Attentional learning and flexible induction: How mundane mechanisms give rise to smart behaviors. Child Development 79:639–51.Google Scholar
Wellman, H. M. (2010) Developing a theory of mind. In: The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development, ed. Goswami, U., 2nd ed., pp. 258–84. Wiley.Google Scholar
Woodman, G. F., Vogel, E. K. & Luck, S. J. (2012) Flexibility in visual working memory: Accurate change detection in the face of irrelevant variations in position. Visual Cognition 20:128.Google Scholar