Structural thinking about social categories: Evidence from formal explanations, generics, and generalization

Nadya Vasilyeva, Tania Lombrozo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

37 Scopus citations

Abstract

Many theories of kind representation suggest that people posit internal, essence-like factors that underlie kind membership and explain properties of category members. Across three studies (N = 281), we document the characteristics of an alternative form of construal according to which the properties of social kinds are seen as products of structural factors: stable, external constraints that obtain due to the kind's social position. Internalist and structural construals are similar in that both support formal explanations (i.e., “category member has property P due to category membership C”), generic claims (“Cs have P”), and the generalization of category properties to individual category members when kind membership and social position are confounded. Our findings thus challenge these phenomena as signatures of internalist thinking. However, once category membership and structural position are unconfounded, different patterns of generalization emerge across internalist and structural construals, as do different judgments concerning category definitions and the dispensability of properties for category membership. We discuss the broader implications of these findings for accounts of formal explanation, generic language, and kind representation.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number104383
JournalCognition
Volume204
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

Keywords

  • Essentialism
  • Generalization
  • Inherence
  • Kind representation
  • Social categorization
  • Structural explanation

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Structural thinking about social categories: Evidence from formal explanations, generics, and generalization'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this