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Is the inherence heuristic needed to understand system-justifying tendencies among children?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2014

Anna-Kaisa Newheiser
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-1525. anewheiser@albany.eduhttp://newheiser.socialpsychology.org/krolson@uw.eduhttps://depts.washington.edu/uwkids/krolson/
Kristina R. Olson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-1525. anewheiser@albany.eduhttp://newheiser.socialpsychology.org/krolson@uw.eduhttps://depts.washington.edu/uwkids/krolson/

Abstract

Evidence that children's system-justifying preferences track the extent of group-based status differences is consistent with the inherence heuristic account. However, evidence that children are inferring inherence per se, or that such inferences are the cause of system-justifying preferences, is missing. We note that, until direct evidence of the inherence heuristic is available, alternative models should not be ignored.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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