{"title":"文化如何影响本质主义信念的早期发展。","authors":"Yian Xu, Michelle Wang, Kelsey Moty, Marjorie Rhodes","doi":"10.1111/desc.13586","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n <p>People represent many categories and their features as determined by intrinsic essences. These essentialist beliefs reflect biased views of the world that can hinder scientific reasoning and contribute to social prejudice. To consider the extent to which such essentialist views originate from culturally-situated processes, the present study tested the developmental trajectories of essentialist beliefs among children growing up in the United States and China (<i>N</i> = 531; ages 3–6). Essentialist beliefs emerged across early childhood in both communities, but their instantiation and trajectories varied across cultures. In the sample from the United States (but not from China), essentialist beliefs that categories and their features are fixed-at-birth and inflexible increased across age. On the other hand, in the sample from China, children held stronger beliefs that categories are objective and explanatory and viewed them as more homogenous with age. Children sampled from these two contexts also showed variation in basic explanatory, linguistic, and inferential processes, suggesting that cultural variation in the development of essentialism across childhood might reflect variation in the basic conceptual biases that children rely on to build intuitive theories of the world.</p>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"How Culture Shapes the Early Development of Essentialist Beliefs\",\"authors\":\"Yian Xu, Michelle Wang, Kelsey Moty, Marjorie Rhodes\",\"doi\":\"10.1111/desc.13586\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div>\\n \\n <p>People represent many categories and their features as determined by intrinsic essences. These essentialist beliefs reflect biased views of the world that can hinder scientific reasoning and contribute to social prejudice. To consider the extent to which such essentialist views originate from culturally-situated processes, the present study tested the developmental trajectories of essentialist beliefs among children growing up in the United States and China (<i>N</i> = 531; ages 3–6). Essentialist beliefs emerged across early childhood in both communities, but their instantiation and trajectories varied across cultures. In the sample from the United States (but not from China), essentialist beliefs that categories and their features are fixed-at-birth and inflexible increased across age. On the other hand, in the sample from China, children held stronger beliefs that categories are objective and explanatory and viewed them as more homogenous with age. Children sampled from these two contexts also showed variation in basic explanatory, linguistic, and inferential processes, suggesting that cultural variation in the development of essentialism across childhood might reflect variation in the basic conceptual biases that children rely on to build intuitive theories of the world.</p>\\n </div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":48392,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Developmental Science\",\"volume\":\"28 1\",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":3.1000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-11-06\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Developmental Science\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"102\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.13586\",\"RegionNum\":1,\"RegionCategory\":\"心理学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Developmental Science","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.13586","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
How Culture Shapes the Early Development of Essentialist Beliefs
People represent many categories and their features as determined by intrinsic essences. These essentialist beliefs reflect biased views of the world that can hinder scientific reasoning and contribute to social prejudice. To consider the extent to which such essentialist views originate from culturally-situated processes, the present study tested the developmental trajectories of essentialist beliefs among children growing up in the United States and China (N = 531; ages 3–6). Essentialist beliefs emerged across early childhood in both communities, but their instantiation and trajectories varied across cultures. In the sample from the United States (but not from China), essentialist beliefs that categories and their features are fixed-at-birth and inflexible increased across age. On the other hand, in the sample from China, children held stronger beliefs that categories are objective and explanatory and viewed them as more homogenous with age. Children sampled from these two contexts also showed variation in basic explanatory, linguistic, and inferential processes, suggesting that cultural variation in the development of essentialism across childhood might reflect variation in the basic conceptual biases that children rely on to build intuitive theories of the world.
期刊介绍:
Developmental Science publishes cutting-edge theory and up-to-the-minute research on scientific developmental psychology from leading thinkers in the field. It is currently the only journal that specifically focuses on human developmental cognitive neuroscience. Coverage includes: - Clinical, computational and comparative approaches to development - Key advances in cognitive and social development - Developmental cognitive neuroscience - Functional neuroimaging of the developing brain