Language Signaling High Proportions and Generics Lead to Generalizing, but Not Essentializing, for Novel Social Kinds.
Essentializing
Generics
Prejudice
Quantifiers
Stereotype
Journal
Cognitive science
ISSN: 1551-6709
Titre abrégé: Cogn Sci
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 7708195
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
11 2021
11 2021
Historique:
revised:
10
08
2021
received:
05
01
2021
accepted:
20
09
2021
entrez:
10
11
2021
pubmed:
11
11
2021
medline:
2
4
2022
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Generics (e.g., "Dogs bark") are thought by many to lead to essentializing: to assuming that members of the same category share an internal property that causally grounds shared behaviors and traits, even without evidence of such a shared property. Similarly, generics are thought to increase generalizing, that is, attributing properties to other members of the same group given evidence that some members of the group have the property. However, it is not clear from past research what underlies the capacity of generic language to increase essentializing and generalizing. Is it specific to generics, or are there broader mechanisms at work, such as the fact that generics are terms that signal high proportions? Study 1 (100 5-6 year-olds, 140 adults) found that neither generics, nor high-proportion quantifiers ("most," "many") elicited essentializing about a novel social kind (Zarpies). However, both generics and high-proportion quantifiers led adults and, to a lesser extent, children, to generalize, with high-proportion quantifiers doing so more than generics for adults. Specifics ("this") did not protect against either essentializing or generalizing when compared to the quantifier "some." Study 2 (100 5-6 year-olds, 112 adults) found that neither generics nor visual imagery signaling high proportions led to essentializing. While generics increased generalizing compared to specifics and visual imagery signaling both low and high proportions for adults, there was no difference in generalizing for children. Our findings suggest high-proportion quantifiers, including generics, lead adults, and to some extent children, to generalize, but not essentialize, about novel social kinds.
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
e13051Informations de copyright
© 2021 Cognitive Science Society LLC.
Références
Alloway, T. P., McCallum, F., Alloway, R. G., & Hoicka, E. (2015). Liar, liar, working memory on fire: Investigating the role of working memory in childhood verbal deception. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 137, 30-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.03.013
Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(4), 577-660.
Barsalou, L. W., Simmons, W. K., Barbey, A. K., & Wilson, C. D. (2003). Grounding conceptual knowledge in modality-specific systems. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(2), 84-91. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(02)00029-3
Béland, S., Pichette, F., & Jolani, S. (2016). Impact on Cronbach's α of simple treatment methods for missing data. The Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 12(1), 57-73. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.12.1.p057
Brandone, A. C., Gelman, S. A., & Hedglen, J. (2015). Children's developing intuitions about the truth conditions and implications of novel generics versus quantified statements. Cognitive Science, 39(4), 711-738. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12176
Busselle, R., & Crandall, H. (2002). Television viewing and perceptions about race differences in socioeconomic success. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 46(2), 265-282. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem4602_6
Carlson, G. N. (1977). Reference to kinds in English. Amherst: University of Massachussetts.
Chambers, C. G., Graham, S. A., & Turner, J. N. (2008). When hearsay trumps evidence: How generic language guides preschoolers' inferences about unfamiliar things. Language and Cognitive Processes, 23(5), 749-766. https://doi.org/10.1080/01690960701786111
Cimpian, A. (2010). The impact of generic language about ability on children's achievement motivation. Developmental Psychology, 46(5), 1333-1340. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019665
Cimpian, A., & Cadena, C. (2010). Why are dunkels sticky? Preschoolers infer functionality and intentional creation for artifact properties learned from generic language. Cognition, 117(1), 62-68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2010.06.011
Cimpian, A., & Erickson, L. C. (2012). The effect of generic statements on children's causal attributions: Questions of mechanism. Developmental Psychology, 48(1), 159-170. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025274
Cimpian, A., Gelman, S. A., & Brandone, A. C. (2010). Theory-based considerations influence the interpretation of generic sentences. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25(2), 261-276. https://doi.org/10.1080/01690960903025227
Cimpian, A., & Markman, E. M. (2008). Preschool children's use of cues to generic meaning. Cognition, 107(1), 19-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2007.07.008
Cimpian, A., & Markman, E. M. (2009). Information learned from generic language becomes central to children's biological concepts: Evidence from their open-ended explanations. Cognition, 113(1), 14-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.07.004
Cimpian, A., & Markman, E. M. (2011). The generic/nongeneric distinction influences how children interpret new information about social others. Child Development, 82(2), 471-492. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01525.x
Cimpian, A., & Scott, R. M. (2012). Children expect generic knowledge to be widely shared. Cognition, 123(3), 419-433. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.02.003
Dixon, T. L. (2008a). Crime news and racialized beliefs: Understanding the relationship between local news viewing and perceptions of African Americans and crime. Journal of Communication, 58(1), 106-125. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00376.x
Dixon, T. L. (2008b). Network news and racial beliefs: Exploring the connection between national television news exposure and stereotypical perceptions of African Americans. Journal of Communication, 58(2), 321-337. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.00387.x
Dunham, Y., Baron, A. S., & Carey, S. (2011). Consequences of “minimal” group affiliations in children. Child Development, 82(3), 793-811. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01577.x
Fassbender, I., Teubert, M., & Lohaus, A. (2016). The development of preferences for own-race versus other-race faces in 3-, 6- and 9-month-old Caucasian infants. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13(1), 152-165. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2015.1073585
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 175-191. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03193146
Gelman, S. A. (2004). Psychological essentialism in children. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(9), 404-409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.07.001
Gelman, S. A., & Bloom, P. (2007). Developmental changes in the understanding of generics. Cognition, 105(1), 166-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2006.09.009
Gelman, S. A., Leslie, S.-J., Gelman, R., & Leslie, A. (2019). Do children recall numbers as generic? A strong test of the generics-as-default hypothesis. Language Learning and Development, 15(3), 217-231. https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2019.1571418
Gelman, S. A., Leslie, S.-J., Was, A. M., & Koch, C. M. (2015). Children's interpretations of general quantifiers, specific quantifiers and generics. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 30(4), 448-461. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2014.931591
Gelman, S. A., & Raman, L. (2003). Preschool children use linguistic form class and pragmatic cues to interpret generics. Child Development, 74(1), 308-325. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00537
Gelman, S. A., Sanchez Tapia, I., & Leslie, S.-J. (2016). Memory for generic and quantified sentences in Spanish-speaking children and adults. Journal of Child Language, 43(6), 1231-1244. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000915000483
Gelman, S. A., Star, J. R., & Flukes, J. E. (2002). Children's use of generics in inductive inferences. Journal of Cognition and Development, 3(2), 179-199. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327647JCD0302_3
Gelman, S. A., & Tardif, T. (1998). A cross-linguistic comparison of generic noun phrases in English and Mandarin. Cognition, 66(3), 215-248. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277%2898%2900021-3
Gelman, S. A., Ware, E. A., & Kleinberg, F. (2010). Effects of generic language on category content and structure. Cognitive Psychology, 61(3), 273-301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2010.06.001
Goldfarb, D., Lagattuta, K. H., Kramer, H. J., Kennedy, K., & Tashjian, S. M. (2017). When your kind cannot live here: How generic language and criminal sanctions shape social categorization. Psychological Science, 28(11), 1597-1609. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617714827
Graham, S. A., Gelman, S. A., & Clarke, J. (2016). Generics license 30-month-olds’ inferences about the atypical properties of novel kinds. Developmental Psychology, 52(9), 1353-1362. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000183
Graham, S. A., Nayer, S. L., & Gelman, S. A. (2011). Two-year-olds use the generic/nongeneric distinction to guide their inferences about novel kinds. Child Development, 82(2), 493-507. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01572.x
Halberda, J., Taing, L., & Lidz, J. (2008). The development of “most” comprehension and its potential dependence on counting ability in preschoolers. Language Learning and Development, 4(2), 99-121. https://doi.org/10.1080/15475440801922099
Hamilton, A., Plunkett, K., & Schafer, G. (2000). Infant vocabulary development assessed with a British communicative development inventory. Journal of Child Language, 27(3), 689-705. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900004414
Hoicka, E., & Akhtar, N. (2011). Preschoolers joke with jokers, but correct foreigners. Developmental Science, 14(4), 848-858. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01033.x
Hollander, M. A., Gelman, S. A., & Raman, L. (2009). Generic language and judgements about category membership: Can generics highlight properties as central? Language and Cognitive Processes, 24(4), 481-505, Article Pii 795095508. https://doi.org/10.1080/01690960802223485
Hollander, M. A., Gelman, S. A., & Star, J. (2002). Children's interpretation of generic noun phrases. Developmental Psychology, 38(6), 883-894. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.38.6.883
Katsos, N., & Bishop, D. V. (2011). Pragmatic tolerance: Implications for the acquisition of informativeness and implicature. Cognition, 120(1), 67-81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.02.015
Katsos, N., Cummins, C., Ezeizabarrena, M. J., Gavarró, A., Kraljević, J. K., Hrzica, G., … Noveck, I. (2016). Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(33), 9244-9249. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1601341113
Kelly, D. J., Quinn, P. C., Slater, A. M., Lee, K., Gibson, A., Smith, M., … Pascalis, O. (2005). Three-month-olds, but not newborns, prefer own-race faces. Developmental Science, 8(6), F31-F36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.0434a.x
Lawler, J. M. (1973). Studies in English generics. University of Michigan Papers in Linguistics, 1(1), 1-184.
Leslie, S.-J. (2008). Generics: Cognition and acquisition. Philosophical Review, 117(1), 1-47. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2007-023
Leslie, S.-J. (2017). The original sin of cognition: Fear, prejudice, and generalization. The Journal of Philosophy, 114(8), 393-421. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2017114828
Leslie, S.-J., & Gelman, S. A. (2012). Quantified statements are recalled as generics: Evidence from preschool children and adults. Cognitive Psychology, 64(3), 186-214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2011.12.001
Liu, S., Xiao, N. G., Quinn, P. C., Zhu, D., Ge, L., Pascalis, O., & Lee, K. (2015). Asian infants show preference for own-race but not other-race female faces: The role of infant caregiving arrangements. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 593. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00593
Liu, S., Xiao, W. S., Xiao, N. G., Quinn, P. C., Zhang, Y., Chen, H., … Lee, K. (2015). Development of visual preference for own- versus other-race faces in infancy. Developmental Psychology, 51(4), 500-511. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038835
McCormack, T., Butterfill, S., Hoerl, C., & Burns, P. (2009). Cue competition effects and young children's causal and counterfactual inferences. Developmental Psychology, 45(6), 1563-1575. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017408
Mehrotra, S., & Perfors, A. (2019). Generic noun phrases in child speech. 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Montreal.
Nguyen, S. P., & Gelman, A. (2012). Generic language facilitates children's cross-classification. Cognitive Development, 27(2), 154-167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2012.01.001
Noyes, A., & Keil, F. C. (2020). There is no privileged link between kinds and essences early in development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117, 10633-10635. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2003627117
Nyhout, A., & O'Neill, D. K. (2014). Storybooks aren't just for fun: Narrative and non-narrative picture books foster equal amounts of generic language during mother-toddler book sharing. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 325. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00325
Oliver, M. B., & Armstrong, G. B. (1995). Predictors of viewing and enjoyment of reality-based and fictional crime shows. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 72(3), 559-570. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769909507200307
Pappas, A., & Gelman, S. A. (1998). Generic noun phrases in mother-child conversations. Journal of Child Language, 25(1), 19-33. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000997003292
Prasada, S., Khemlani, S., Leslie, S.-J., & Glucksberg, S. (2013). Conceptual distinctions amongst generics. Cognition, 126(3), 405-422. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.11.010
Rhodes, M., Leslie, S.-J., Bianchi, L., & Chalik, L. (2018). The role of generic language in the early development of social categorization. Child Development, 89(1), 148-155. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12714
Rhodes, M., Leslie, S.-J., Saunders, K., Dunham, Y., & Cimpian, A. (2018). How does social essentialism affect the development of inter-group relations? Developmental Science, 21(1), e12509. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12509
Rhodes, M., Leslie, S.-J., & Tworek, C. M. (2012). Cultural transmission of social essentialism. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(34), 13526-13531. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1208951109
Roberts, S. O., Ho, A. K., & Gelman, S. A. (2017). Group presence, category labels, and generic statements influence children to treat descriptive group regularities as prescriptive. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 158, 19-31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.11.013
Saul, J. (2017). Are generics especially pernicious? Inquiry, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2017.1285995
Skordos, D., & Papafragou, A. (2016). Children's derivation of scalar implicatures: Alternatives and relevance. Cognition, 153(6-18). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.04.006
Sobel, D. M., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Gopnik, A. (2004). Children's causal inferences from indirect evidence: Backwards blocking and Bayesian reasoning in preschoolers. Cognitive Science, 28(3), 303-333. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2803_1
Stock, H. R., Graham, S. A., & Chambers, C. G. (2009). Generic language and speaker confidence guide preschoolers' inferences about novel animate kinds. Developmental Psychology, 45(3), 884-888. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015359
Vasilyeva, N., Gopnik, A., & Lombrozo, T. (2018). The development of structural thinking about social categories. Developmental Psychology, 54(9), 1735-1744. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000555
Wodak, D., Leslie, S.-J., & Rhodes, M. (2015). What a loaded generalization: Generics and social cognition. Philosophy Compass, 10(9), 625-635. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12250
Xiao, N. G., Quinn, P. C., Liu, S., Ge, L., Pascalis, O., & Lee, K. (2018). Older but not younger infants associate own-race faces with happy music and other-race faces with sad music. Developmental Science, 21(e12537), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12537
Xiao, N. G., Wu, R., Quinn, P. C., Liu, S., Tummeltshammer, K. S., Kirkham, N. Z., … Lee, K. (2018). Infants rely more on gaze cues from own-race than other-race adults for learning under uncertainty. Child Development, 89(3), e229-e244. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12798
Xu, F. (2002). The role of language in acquiring object kind concepts in infancy. Cognition, 85(3), 223-250. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(02)00109-9