TY - JOUR
T1 - The influence of linguistic form and causal explanations on the development of social essentialism
AU - Benitez, Josie
AU - Leshin, Rachel A.
AU - Rhodes, Marjorie
N1 - Funding Information:
Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01HD087672 and Award Number F31HD107965 . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - Generic descriptions of social categories (e.g., boys play baseball; girls have long hair) lead children and adults to think of the referenced categories (i.e., boys and girls) in essentialist terms—as natural ways of dividing up the world. Yet, key questions remain unanswered about how, why, and when generic language shapes the development of essentialist beliefs. The present experiment examined the scope of these effects by testing the extent to which generics elicit essentialist beliefs because of their linguistic form or because of the causal information they convey. Generic language led children (N = 199, Mage = 6.07 years, range = 4.5–7.95) to essentialize a novel social category, regardless of the causal information used to describe category-property relations (either biological or cultural). In contrast, both linguistic form and causal information influenced adults' (N = 234) beliefs. These findings reveal a unique role of linguistic form in the development and communication of essentialist beliefs in young children.
AB - Generic descriptions of social categories (e.g., boys play baseball; girls have long hair) lead children and adults to think of the referenced categories (i.e., boys and girls) in essentialist terms—as natural ways of dividing up the world. Yet, key questions remain unanswered about how, why, and when generic language shapes the development of essentialist beliefs. The present experiment examined the scope of these effects by testing the extent to which generics elicit essentialist beliefs because of their linguistic form or because of the causal information they convey. Generic language led children (N = 199, Mage = 6.07 years, range = 4.5–7.95) to essentialize a novel social category, regardless of the causal information used to describe category-property relations (either biological or cultural). In contrast, both linguistic form and causal information influenced adults' (N = 234) beliefs. These findings reveal a unique role of linguistic form in the development and communication of essentialist beliefs in young children.
KW - Causal reasoning
KW - Cognitive development
KW - Generic language
KW - Social categorization
KW - Social essentialism
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105246
DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105246
M3 - Article
C2 - 35985103
AN - SCOPUS:85135912200
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 229
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
M1 - 105246
ER -