Conceptions of aggression and withdrawal in early childhood

Two studies investigate young children's beliefs about aggression and withdrawal in others with reference to the possibility of stability and change. Study 1 (N=41) provides evidence that preschool children (1) view aggression in more essentialist ways (i.e. they believe it to be more stable and less changeable) than withdrawal and (2) believe that friends hold a greater potential to create change in aggression and withdrawal than do other potential sources of influence, such as parents and teachers. Study 2 (N=25) replicates the findings of Study 1 and also demonstrates that by preschool age, children hold systematic ideas about the effectiveness of strategies that friends can use to change the behaviour of their peers. These ideas include the belief that prosocial strategies, such as showing peers how to make friends, are more effective than requests to stop engaging in undesirable behaviour. Study 2 also demonstrates that preschool‐aged participants engaged in essentialist reasoning to a greater extent than did a comparison group of 20 7–8 year olds. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A proposed universal model of problem solving for design,science and cognate fields

A modestly generic, innovative, problem solving process with roots in the study of design and scientific research problem solving is presented and motivated. It is argued to be the shared core process of all problem solving. At its heart is a recognition of five foci or nodes of change vital to the process (changes in problem and solution formulation, method, constraints, and partial solution proposals) together with a bootstrap marked by the formation of higher order knowledge about problem solving in the domain in tandem with the solving of specific problems, the essential feature of all learned improvement. None of these elements is entirely original, but the way they are made explicit and developed (rather than folded into fewer, more abstract, boxes) is argued to provide fresh understanding of the organisation and power of the process to deal with complex practical problems.     

动机对高一学生创造性的科学问题提出能力的影响

选取了360名高一学生,采用直接和间接激发内外动机的方式,通过两个研究考察了内外动机和不同水平的外部动机对中学生创造性的科学问题提出能力的影响,结果发现:(1)直接激发条件下,内部动机能够促进创造性的科学问题提出能力,尤其表现在流畅性以及独创性维度上;(2)直接激发条件下,外部动机能够抑制创造性的科学问题提出能力,尤其表现在独创性维度上;(3)评价情境不同引起的不同的动机水平对于创造性的科学问题提出能力的影响是不同的,期待正性评价不影响创造性的科学问题提出能力,但避免负性评价对创造性的科学问题提出能力有着显著的抑制作用.     

Developmental changes in children's inductive inferences for biological concepts: implications for the development of essentialist beliefs

We examined developmental changes in children's inductive inferences about biological concepts as a function of knowledge of properties and concepts. Specifically, 4‐ to 5‐year‐olds and 9‐ to 10‐year‐olds were taught either familiar or unfamiliar internal, external, or functional properties about known and unknown target animals. Children were asked to infer whether each of four probes, varying in categorical and perceptual similarity to the target, also shared that property. Overall, children made more inferences for known concepts and familiar properties. Older children were more likely to use categorical than perceptual information when making inferences about internal and functional properties of known concepts; however, younger children, in general, made no distinction for property type, and they weighted categorical and perceptual information similarly. Both age groups utilized appearance when making inferences about external properties. Results are discussed in terms of developmental changes in children's appreciation of essentialism. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding sexual prejudice: The role of political ideology and strategic essentialism

Despite the increased visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQ community, sexual minorities continue to face prejudice and discrimination in many domains. Past research has shown that this prejudice is more prevalent among those holding conservative political views. In two studies, we merge strategic essentialism and motivated ideology theoretical perspectives to empirically investigate the link between political orientation and sexual prejudice. More specifically, we examine how conservatives strategically use different forms of essentialism to support their views of gay individuals and their reactions to messages aimed at changing essentializing beliefs. In Study 1 (N = 220), we demonstrate that conservatives endorse social essentialism (i.e., the belief that gay and straight people are fundamentally different from each other) more than liberals do. In turn, they blame gay individuals more for their sexual orientation and show more prejudice toward them. At the same time, conservatives endorse trait essentialism (i.e., the belief that sexual orientation is a fixed attribute that cannot be changed) less than liberals do, which in turn predicts greater levels of blame and prejudice for conservatives relative to liberals. In Study 2 (N = 217), we additionally show that conservatives, but not liberals, are resistant to messages aimed at increasing trait essentialism and reducing prejudice toward sexual minorities. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

What is a Thing?

“Thing” in the titular question of this paper should be construed as having the utmost generality. In the relevant sense, a thing just is an entity, an existent, a being. The present task is to say what a thing of any category is. This task is the primary one of any comprehensive and systematic metaphysics. Indeed, an answer provides the means for resolving perennial disputes concerning the integrity of the structure in reality—whether some of the relations among things are necessary merely given those relata themselves—and the intricacy of this structure—whether some things are more or less fundamental than others. After considering some reasons for thinking the generality of the titular question makes it unanswerable, the paper propounds the methodology, original inquiry, required to answer it. The key to this methodology is adopting a singular perspective; confronting the world as merely the impetus to inquiry, one can attain an account of what a thing must be. Radical ontology is a systematic metaphysics—broadly Aristotelian, essentialist, and nonhierarchical—that develops the consequences of this account. With it, it is possible to move past stalemate in metaphysics by revealing the grounds of a principled choice between seemingly incommensurable worldviews.     

Psychological Essentialism: A Review Of E. Margolis And S. Laurence (Eds.), Concepts: Core Readings.

Concepts: Core Readings (1999) is an edited volume of articles representing five major theories of concepts within cognitive psychology. Of the five, only the prototype theory can be interpreted in terms arising from a behavioral analysis. Two conceptual problems pervade nearly all of the papers in the volume. The first is an implicit commitment to essentialism; concepts are reified and are commonly discussed as though they have essential properties. Second, the theories suffer from a defective theory of verbal behavior. No distinction is made between verbal operants and words drawn from a hat.     

Paul Feyerabend und Thomas Kuhn

The paper discusses some aspects of the relationship between Feyerabend and Kuhn. First, some biographical remarks concerning their connections are made. Second, four characteristics of Feyerabend and Kuhn's concept of incommensurability are discussed. Third, Feyerabend's general criticism of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is reconstructed. Forth and more specifically, Feyerabend's criticism of Kuhn's evaluation of normal science is critically investigated. Finally, Feyerabend's re-evaluation of Kuhn's philosophy towards the end of his life is presented. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Thomas Kuhn's Misunderstood Relation to Kripke-Putnam Essentialism

Kuhn's ‘taxonomic conception’ of natural kinds enables him to defend and re-specify the notion of incommensurability against the idea that it is reference, not meaning/use, that is overwhelmingly important. Kuhn's ghost still lacks any reason to believe that referentialist essentialism undercuts his central arguments in SSR – and indeed, any reason to believe that such essentialism is even coherent, considered as a doctrine about anything remotely resembling our actual science. The actual relation of Kuhn to Kripke-Putnam essentialism, is as follows: Kuhn decisively undermines it – drawing upon the inadequacies of such essentialism when faced with the failure of attempts to instantiate in history or contemporaneously its ‘thought-experiment’ – and leaves the field open instead for his own more ‘realistic’, deflationary way of thinking about the operation of ‘natural kinds’ in science. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.