TY - JOUR
T1 - Structure-function fit underlies the evaluation of teleological explanations
AU - Liquin, Emily G.
AU - Lombrozo, Tania
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank members of the Concepts and Cognition Lab at UC Berkeley for their useful comments on experimental design. EL presented some of the results reported here at the 2017 Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and we are grateful to that audience for their discussion and feedback. This work was supported by a James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition to TL and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to EL [grant numbers DGE 1752814 and DGE 1106400]. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the McDonnell Foundation or the National Science Foundation.
Funding Information:
We would like to thank members of the Concepts and Cognition Lab at UC Berkeley for their useful comments on experimental design. EL presented some of the results reported here at the 2017 Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and we are grateful to that audience for their discussion and feedback. This work was supported by a James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition to TL and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to EL [grant numbers DGE 1752814 and DGE 1106400 ]. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the McDonnell Foundation or the National Science Foundation .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2018/12
Y1 - 2018/12
N2 - Teleological explanations, which appeal to a function or purpose (e.g., “kangaroos have long tails for balance”), seem to play a special role within the biological domain. We propose that such explanations are compelling because they are evaluated on the basis of a salient cue: structure-function fit, or the correspondence between a biological feature's form (e.g., tail length) and its function (e.g., balance). Across five studies with 852 participants in total, we find support for three predictions that follow from this proposal. First, we find that function information decreases reliance on mechanistic considerations when evaluating explanations (Experiments 1–3), indicating the presence of a salient, function-based cue. Second, we demonstrate that structure-function fit is the best candidate for this cue (Experiments 3–4). Third, we show that scientifically-unwarranted teleological explanations are more likely to be accepted under speeded and unspeeded conditions when they are high in structure-function fit (Experiment 5). Experiment 5 also finds that structure-function fit extends beyond biology to teleological explanations in other domains. Jointly, these studies provide a new account of how teleological explanations are evaluated and why they are often (but not universally) compelling.
AB - Teleological explanations, which appeal to a function or purpose (e.g., “kangaroos have long tails for balance”), seem to play a special role within the biological domain. We propose that such explanations are compelling because they are evaluated on the basis of a salient cue: structure-function fit, or the correspondence between a biological feature's form (e.g., tail length) and its function (e.g., balance). Across five studies with 852 participants in total, we find support for three predictions that follow from this proposal. First, we find that function information decreases reliance on mechanistic considerations when evaluating explanations (Experiments 1–3), indicating the presence of a salient, function-based cue. Second, we demonstrate that structure-function fit is the best candidate for this cue (Experiments 3–4). Third, we show that scientifically-unwarranted teleological explanations are more likely to be accepted under speeded and unspeeded conditions when they are high in structure-function fit (Experiment 5). Experiment 5 also finds that structure-function fit extends beyond biology to teleological explanations in other domains. Jointly, these studies provide a new account of how teleological explanations are evaluated and why they are often (but not universally) compelling.
KW - Causal reasoning
KW - Explanation
KW - Teleology
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2018.09.001
DO - 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2018.09.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 30317031
AN - SCOPUS:85054747979
SN - 0010-0285
VL - 107
SP - 22
EP - 43
JO - Cognitive Psychology
JF - Cognitive Psychology
ER -