3-134 - The Essence of Biological Categories: Factors Influencing Children’s Sensitivity to Variability and Change

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Psychological essentialism allows children to “look beyond” the perceptual (Gelman, 2005). However, in the process, it also guides children to ignore information that is key to representing the variable, mutable structure of biological categories and to accurately learn the mechanisms of change in the biological domain. This symposium presents four talks exploring factors that influence children’s essentialist insensitivity to category variability and their abilities to represent and accept category change. Papers 1 and 2 focus on children’s intuitive strategies for representing and learning about variable biological categories. Papers 3 and 4 explore ways that instruction can be used to support children’s understanding and acceptance of evolutionary change.

Paper 1 finds that when learning about animal categories 5- to 10-years-old children increasingly recognize the informativeness of samples that depict within-category variability. Paper 2 finds that relative to perceptual cues about the discreteness or stability of category traits, labels particularly promote kindergartners’ essentialist tendencies. Paper 3 leverages these insights and finds that priming category variability before teaching about metamorphosis increases older but not younger children’s acceptance of both metamorphosis and common ancestry. Paper 4 finds that, in young children and adults, understanding adaptation by natural selection is associated with a more coherent, less essentialist, understanding of the relation between within-species variation and between-species common ancestry.

Overall, these findings suggest that instruction that considers constraints on children’s developing sensitivity to within-category variability can help children overcome essentialism and accurately recognize the diversity and unity of biological categories.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chairs

• Samuel Ronfard, Boston University

• Deborah Kelemen, Boston University

Individual Presentations

• Developmental Changes in Strategies for Learning About Biological Kinds - Presenting Author: Emily Foster-Hanson, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Kelsey Moty, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: John Daryl Ocampo, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Amanda cardarelli, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Marjorie Rhodes, New York University

• Exploring Children’s Use of Discreteness, Stability, and Labels as Cues to Essentialize Novel Categories - Presenting Author: Rebecca Peretz-Lange, Tufts University; Non-Presenting Author: Paul Muentener, Tufts University

• Effects of Priming Variability on Children’s Endorsement of Metamorphosis and Evolution - Presenting Author: David Menendez, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Karl S. Rosengren, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Martha W Alibali, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Understanding Natural Selection is Associated With Decreased Essentialist Thinking about Biological Variability and Change - Presenting Author: Samuel Ronfard, Boston University; Non-Presenting Author: Deborah Kelemen, Boston University