God’s categories: The effect of religiosity on children’s teleological and essentialist beliefs about categories

Creationism implies that God imbued each category with a unique nature and purpose. These implications closely correspond to what some cognitive psychologists define as an essentialistic and teleological stance towards categories. This study assessed to what extent the belief in God as creator of categories is related to the mappings of these stances to categories in different domains. Israeli secular and orthodox Jewish 1st and 5th graders responded to questions assessing these three types of beliefs. The results revealed that secular children did not differ from orthodox children with respect to their essentialist beliefs about the stability of animal category membership, and their teleological construal of artifacts. In turn, secular children did differ from orthodox children with respect to their essentialist beliefs about the stability of social category membership, and their teleological construal of both animal and social categories. These findings intimate that while essentialist beliefs about animals, and teleological beliefs about artifacts do not require cultural input in order to emerge, essentialist beliefs about social categories, and teleological beliefs about both animal and social categories do.     

Why are some moral beliefs perceived to be more objective than others?

Recent research has investigated whether people think of their moral beliefs as objectively true facts about the world, or as subjective preferences. The present research examines variability in the perceived objectivity of different moral beliefs, with respect both to the content of moral beliefs themselves (what they are about), and to the social representation of those moral beliefs (whether other individuals are thought to hold them). It also examines the possible consequences of perceiving a moral belief as objective. With respect to the content of moral beliefs, we find that beliefs about the moral properties of negatively valenced acts are seen as reliably more objective than beliefs about the moral properties of positively valenced acts. With respect to the social representation of moral beliefs, we find that the degree of perceived consensus regarding a moral belief positively influences its perceived objectivity. The present experiments also demonstrate that holding a moral belief to be objective is associated with a more ‘closed’ response in the face of disagreement about it, and with more morally pejorative attributions towards a disagreeing other person.     

Preschool Ontology: The Role of Beliefs About Category Boundaries in Early Categorization

These studies examined the role of ontological beliefs about category boundaries in early categorization. Study 1 found that preschool-age children (N = 48, aged 3–4 years old) have domain-specific beliefs about the meaning of category boundaries; children judged the boundaries of natural kind categories (animal species, human gender) as discrete and strict, but they judged the boundaries of other categories (artifact categories, human race) as more flexible. Study 2 demonstrated that these domain-specific ontological intuitions guide children's learning of new categories; children (N = 28, 3-year-olds) assumed that the boundaries of novel animal categories would be narrower and more strictly defined than novel artifact categories. These data demonstrate that abstract beliefs about the meaning of category boundaries shape early conceptual development.     

Understanding Conspiracy Theories

Scholarly efforts to understand conspiracy theories have grown significantly in recent years, and there is now a broad and interdisciplinary literature. In reviewing this body of work, we ask three specific questions. First, what factors are associated with conspiracy beliefs? Our review of the literature shows that conspiracy beliefs result from a range of psychological, political, and social factors. Next, how are conspiracy theories communicated? Here, we explain how conspiracy theories are shared among individuals and spread through traditional and social media platforms. Next, what are the societal risks and rewards associated with conspiracy theories? By focusing on politics and science, we argue that conspiracy theories do more harm than good. We conclude by suggesting several promising avenues for future research.     

When Categorization Is Ambiguous: Factors That Facilitate the Use of a Multiple Category Inference Strategy

Prior research has established that categorization plays a central role in new product learning. Very little is known, however, about category‐based learning under conditions of categorization ambiguity. Of particular interest is whether and under what circumstances consumers might employ a multiple‐ (vs. single‐) category strategy to generate inferences about ambiguous products. In this research, we identified 2 factors—category familiarity and the nature of the category cue—that are responsible for determining whether inferences are based on a single category or multiple, competing categories. The results of 3 studies suggest that when an ambiguous product is described in terms of conflicting conceptual and perceptual category cues, a single category inference strategy is employed when the perceptually cued category is more familiar than the conceptually cued category. In particular, inferences are based largely on the perceptually cued category under these circumstances. However, when the perceptually cued category is less than or equal to the conceptually cued category in familiarity, a multiple category inference strategy is employed and inferences are based on both the perceptually and conceptually cued categories.     

Essentializing differences between women and men

People represent many social categories, including gender categories, in essentialist terms: They see category members as sharing deep, nonobvious properties that make them the kinds of things they are. The present research explored the consequences of this mode of representation for social inferences. In two sets of studies, participants learned (a) that they were similar to a member of the other gender on a novel attribute, (b) that they were different from a member of the other gender on a novel attribute, or (c) just their own standing on a novel attribute. Results showed that participants made stronger inductive inferences about the attribute in question when they learned that it distinguished them from a member of the other gender than in the other conditions. We consider the implications of these results for the representation of social categories and for everyday social inference processes.     

Do 10-month-old infants understand others' false beliefs?

As adults, we know that others’ mental states, such as beliefs, guide their behavior and that these mental states can deviate from reality. Researchers have examined whether young children possess adult-like theory of mind by focusing on their understanding about others’ false beliefs. The present research revealed that 10-month-old infants seemed to interpret a person’s choice of toys based on her true or false beliefs about which toys were present. These results indicate that like adults, even preverbal infants act as if they can consider others’ mental states when making inferences about others’ actions.     

Revising Beliefs Towards the Truth

Belief revision (BR) and truthlikeness (TL) emerged independently as two research programmes in formal methodology in the 1970s. A natural way of connecting BR and TL is to ask under what conditions the revision of a belief system by new input information leads the system towards the truth. It turns out that, for the AGM model of belief revision, the only safe case is the expansion of true beliefs by true input, but this is not very interesting or realistic as a model of theory change in science. The new accounts of non-prioritized belief revision do not seem more promising in this respect, and the alternative BR account of updating by imaging leads to other problems. Still, positive results about increasing truthlikeness by belief revision may be sought by restricting attention to special kinds of theories. Another approach is to link truthlikeness to epistemic matters by an estimation function which calculates expected degrees of truthlikeness relative to evidence. Then we can study how the expected truthlikeness of a theory changes when probabilities are revised by conditionalization or imaging. Again, we can ask under what conditions such changes lead our best theories towards the truth.     

Erroneous gambling-related beliefs emerge from broader beliefs during problem-solving: a critical review and classification scheme

Abstract

Erroneous gambling-related beliefs (EGRBs) can be defined as beliefs that imply a failure to recognise how commercial gambling activities are designed to generate a guaranteed loss to players. In theorising about how EGRBs develop, previous reviews have proposed that EGRBs are extensions of decision-making heuristics and associated biases. We propose an alternative generative mechanism: one in which gambling games make substantial wins seem possible through problem-solving and eventual correct strategic action. EGRBs are then beliefs in the possibility of correct strategic action (illusions of control) that develop as players trial candidate strategies—strategies selected based on various broader beliefs. We further propose that EGRBs can be classified based on what is theorised in cognitive science about categories of general human beliefs about the world. For example, it has been theorised that human beliefs about supernatural forces and randomness have certain similarities across cultures, and so we propose that there exists a category of supernatural EGRBs, as well as a category of EGRBs based on broader beliefs about the nature of randomness. We review evidence for this classification scheme and discuss how it can be applied in researching and treating gambling disorder.     

Beliefs About the True Self Explain Asymmetries Based on Moral Judgment

Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about (a) what a person values, (b) whether a person is happy, (c) whether a person has shown weakness of will, and (d) whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend critically on whether participants themselves find the agent's behavior to be morally good or bad. To date, however, the origins of these asymmetries remain unknown. The present studies examine whether beliefs about an agent's “true self” explain these observed asymmetries based on moral judgment. Using the identical materials from previous studies in this area, a series of five experiments indicate that people show a general tendency to conclude that deep inside every individual there is a “true self” calling him or her to behave in ways that are morally virtuous. In turn, this belief causes people to hold different intuitions about what the agent values, whether the agent is happy, whether he or she has shown weakness of will, and whether he or she deserves praise or blame. These results not only help to answer important questions about how people attribute various mental states to others; they also contribute to important theoretical debates regarding how moral values may shape our beliefs about phenomena that, on the surface, appear to be decidedly non‐moral in nature.     

Children's category‐based inferences affect classification

Children learn many new categories and make inferences about these categories. Much work has examined how children make inferences on the basis of category knowledge. However, inferences may also affect what is learned about a category. Four experiments examine whether category‐based inferences during category learning influence category knowledge and thereby affect later classifications for 5‐ to 7‐year‐olds. The children learned to classify pictures of new types of creatures on the basis of a salient feature (colour) and then answered a question that required them to make an inference on the basis of other features. At test, children classified pictures that included only some features (without colour). Experiment 1 showed that the features relevant to the inference during learning led to better classification than did features irrelevant to the inference. Experiment 2 replicated this finding even when the relevant features were physically close to the irrelevant features. Experiments 3 and 4 found this effect even when the classification was learned prior to the inference task and even when no mention was made of the categories during inference learning. Taken together, these results show that making inferences during category learning can influence category knowledge and suggest a need to integrate the work on category learning and category‐based inferences.     

Human Natures: Psychological Essentialism in Thinking about Differences between People

‘Psychological essentialism’ is the belief that members of a category share deep‐seated properties that determine their identity. In the case of social categories, such beliefs have a variety of important implications. We review recent research that shows a central role for essentialist thinking in stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Special attention is paid to beliefs about race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, mental disorder, and personality. Lingering questions about essentialist thinking are discussed, and several directions for future research are suggested.     

On the Interaction of Theory and Data in Concept Learning

Standard models of concept learning generally focus on deriving statistical properties of a category based on data (i.e., category members and the features that describe them) but fail to give appropriate weight to the contact between people's intuitive theories and these data. Two experiments explored the role of people's prior knowledge or intuitive theories on category learning by manipulating the labels associated with the category. Learning differed dramatically when categories of children's drawings were meaningfully labeled (e.g., “done by creative children”) compared to when they were labeled in a neutral manner. When categories are meaningfully labeled, people bring intuitive theories to the learning context. Learning then involves a process in which people search for evidence in the data that supports abstract features or hypotheses that have been activated by the intuitive theories. In contrast, when categories are labeled in a neutral manner, people search for simple features that distinguish one category from another. Importantly, the final study suggests that learning involves an interaction of people's intuitive theories with data, in which theories and data mutually influence each other. The results strongly suggest that straight-forward, relatively modular ways of incorporating prior knowledge into models of category learning are inadequate. More telling, the results suggest that standard models may have fundamental limitations. We outline a speculative model of learning in which the interaction of theory and data is tightly coupled. The article concludes by comparing the results to recent artificial intelligence systems that use prior knowledge during learning.     

What's behind different kinds of kinds: effects of statistical density on learning and representation of categories

This research examined how differences in category structure affect category learning and category representation across points of development. The authors specifically focused on category density--or the proportion of category-relevant variance to the total variance. Results of Experiments 1-3 showed a clear dissociation between dense and sparse categories: Whereas dense categories were readily learned without supervision, learning of sparse categories required supervision. There were also developmental differences in how statistical density affected category representation. Although children represented both dense and sparse categories on the basis of the overall similarity (Experiment 4A), adults represented dense categories on the basis of similarity and represented sparse categories on the basis of the inclusion rule (Experiment 4B). The results support the notion that statistical structure interacts with the learning regime in their effects on category learning. In addition, these results elucidate important developmental differences in how categories are represented, which presents interesting challenges for theories of categorization.     

Promoting a Brand's Emotion Benefits: The Influence of Emotion Categorization Processes on Consumer Evaluations

Research in psychology has demonstrated that people have a shared knowledge of emotion categories. Building on this research and our understanding of categorization processes, this article proposes a mechanism by which consumers utilize information about a brand's “emotion benefits” in forming attitudes. The results of 2 experimental studies show that (a) consumers’ processing of a brand's emotion benefit information is consistent with categorization processes such that emotion category congruity effects are large in basic—versus subordinate—level conditions, (b) associating a brand with certain emotions can influence brand and ad attitudes without necessarily eliciting emotions during exposure to advertising, (c) emotion category congruity “works” through attitude‐toward‐the‐ad and emotion benefit beliefs in influencing brand attitudes, and (d) subjective product category knowledge moderates the strength of these effects. Taken together, these results explicate the process by which a knowledge‐based consideration of a brand's emotional benefits can influence consumers’ beliefs about the brand and brand attitudes.     

Do Parenting Variables Have Specific or Widespread Impact on Parenting Covariates? The Effects of Manipulating Self-Efficacy or Verbal Responsiveness

ABSTRACT

This research aimed at determining to what extent manipulating a specific parenting variable, self-efficacy beliefs or verbal responsiveness, causes specific change in this variable alone, or conversely to what extent it causes widespread change that affects other parenting covariates—in particular behavioral and emotional responsiveness, positive affect irritability, support, and control. Two microtrials were used to achieve this goal. The 45 parents participating were randomly assigned to an 8-week waiting list followed by an 8-week intervention condition focusing on self-efficacy manipulation, or to an 8-week intervention condition focusing on verbal responsiveness manipulation. It can be concluded from the results that the two specific parenting variables under consideration had widespread effects on the six parenting behaviors, with the exception of control in the self-efficacy beliefs condition. The results are discussed for both empirical and clinical purposes.     

Beyond Discrete Categories: Studying Multiracial,Intersex, and Transgender Children Will Strengthen Basic Developmental Science

Developmental research on social categorization has overwhelmingly focused on perceptions about and experiences of individuals who are clear or prototypical members of discrete and usually dichotomous social categories. For example, studies of social categorization, stereotyping, prejudice, and social identity have generally explored how children reason about others who are gender-typical boys or girls or monoracial White or Black children. Similarly, research participants have generally been gender-typical and monoracial. However, our efforts to build theories that account for the true range of variation require acknowledging the increasing visibility of children who do not fit into these discrete categories and raise the question of whether existing theories can capture the dynamics that arise for them. Focusing on race and gender/sex, the social categories that have received the most attention in the developmental literature, we review research that has gone beyond simple dichotomies by including multiracial, gender-nonconforming, or intersex children, either as the targets of social perception or as participants themselves. We argue that this emerging work reveals problematic assumptions built into our theories and methods and highlights the value of building a more inclusive science.     

Classification versus inference learning contrasted with real-world categories

Categories are learned and used in a variety of ways, but the research focus has been on classification learning. Recent work contrasting classification with inference learning of categories found important later differences in category performance. However, theoretical accounts differ on whether this is due to an inherent difference between the tasks or to the implementation decisions. The inherent-difference explanation argues that inference learners focus on the internal structure of the categories—what each category is like—while classification learners focus on diagnostic information to predict category membership. In two experiments, using real-world categories and controlling for earlier methodological differences, inference learners learned more about what each category was like than did classification learners, as evidenced by higher performance on a novel classification test. These results suggest that there is an inherent difference between learning new categories by classifying an item versus inferring a feature.