Children With More Uncertainty in Their Intuitive Theories Seek Domain-Relevant Information

How do changes in learners’ knowledge influence information seeking? We showed preschoolers ( N = 100) uncertain outcomes for events and let them choose which event to resolve. We found that children whose intuitive theories were at immature stages were more likely to seek information to resolve uncertainty about an outcome in the related domains, but children with more mature knowledge were not. This result was replicated in a second experiment but with the nuance that children at intermediate stages of belief development—when the causal outcome would be most ambiguous—were the most motivated to resolve the uncertainty. This effect was not driven by general uncertainty at the framework level but, rather, by the impact that framework knowledge has in accessing uncertainty at the model level. These results are the first to show the relationship between a learning preference and the developmental stage of a child’s intuitive theory.

Moral Dynamics: Grounding Moral Judgment in Intuitive Physics and Intuitive Psychology

When holding others morally responsible, we care about what they did, and what they thought. Traditionally, research in moral psychology has relied on vignette studies, in which a protagonist's actions and thoughts are explicitly communicated. While this research has revealed what variables are important for moral judgment, such as actions and intentions, it is limited in providing a more detailed understanding of exactly how these variables affect moral judgment. Using dynamic visual stimuli that allow for a more fine-grained experimental control, recent studies have proposed a direct mapping from visual features to moral judgments. We embrace the use of visual stimuli in moral psychology, but question the plausibility of a feature-based theory of moral judgment. We propose that the connection from visual features to moral judgments is mediated by an inference about what the observed action reveals about the agent's mental states, and what causal role the agent's action played in bringing about the outcome. We present a computational model that formalizes moral judgments of agents in visual scenes as computations over an intuitive theory of physics combined with an intuitive theory of mind. We test the model's quantitative predictions in three experiments across a wide variety of dynamic interactions between agent and patient.

‘If men were angels, no government would be necessary’: intuitive theories of human nature and preference for authoritarian leaders

How do people arrive at their opinions regarding how society should be governed? We suggest people possess an intuitive theory of human nature. The function of this theory is to predict how strangers will behave in particular classes of situation, and suggest what kinds of institutions and interventions are required to make society function under those circumstances. Across four within-subjects experiments with 750 UK adult participants, we show that the intuitive theory of human nature is fundamentally situation-sensitive. Our participants intuited that conditions of war, scarcity or cultural heterogeneity would increase selfishness and immorality from a subgroup of the population, and that this would undermine the provision of public goods. Rational argument would be become less effective under such circumstances, and punishment more effective; hence, respondents more strongly favoured coercive authoritarian leaders under these conditions compared to peace or abundance. Using World Values Survey data from 55 countries, we detect real-world patterns consistent with these principles: both within and between countries, the more respondents are concerned about the collective threat of war, the more pessimistic their assessment of the moral dependability of their co-citizens, and the stronger their endorsement of authoritarian forms of government.

‘If Men Were Angels, No Government Would Be Necessary’: The Intuitive Theory of Social Motivation and Preference for Authoritarian Leaders

We postulate that at least two distinct cognitive systems affect political judgements. The first system, moral cognition, delivers intuitions about what societal outcomes would be ideal. The second system, which we dub the intuitive theory of social motivation, makes predictions about how other citizens will behave in practice, and hence feeds into opinions on how their conduct should be regulated. Both systems are situation sensitive. We illustrate this thesis through a study of intuitions about redistribution and governance. We present four experiments in which 750 U.K. adults prescribed ideal levels of redistribution for hypothetical societies under different circumstances, and predicted what level of redistribution those societies would actually be able to achieve. Participants judged that the level of redistribution societies would achieve was lower than the ideal. The gulf was particularly large for societies facing war or scarcity, because a subset of people was predicted to respond selfishly to these threats. Strong, authoritarian leaders were seen as more desirable in these circumstances. Specifically, this was because citizens facing these threats were predicted to become less amenable to rational persuasion and their inherent moral sense, and more amenable to control through harsh punishment, which is what strong leaders can deliver. We complement our experimental results with an analysis of World Values Survey data from 52 countries, showing that authoritarian governance preferences are positively associated with the perceived threat of war, and negatively associated with per capita GDP, a proxy for the abundance of resources.

Does essentialism lead to racial prejudice?: It’s not so black and white

Over half a century ago, psychologists hypothesized that social essentialism, an intuitive theory comprising the beliefs that social categories reflect naturally-occurring distinctions and that category members share an underlying and fundamental essence, lays the foundation for prejudice. In the intervening decades, research has shown that although essentialism sometimes leads to prejudicial beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, it does not always, sometimes even leading to decreased prejudice toward stigmatized groups. The relation between essentialism and prejudice is clearly complex, but this review proposes four questions that will help clarify how and when essentialism leads to prejudice: (1) What precisely is essentialism and how might a more nuanced understanding of its components and structure shed light on the mechanisms by which essentialist beliefs contribute to prejudice?; (2) Do essentialist beliefs orient group-based prejudice toward out-groups or toward stigmatized groups, and what are the consequences of essentialist beliefs among those with minoritized identities?; (3) Do essentialist beliefs engender group-based prejudice directly, or must essentialist beliefs interact with additional information or belief systems to lead to negative consequences?; and (4) Do essentialist beliefs lay a foundation for group-based prejudice to develop, or is essentialism strategically invoked to justify existing prejudice? By posing these questions, describing what is currently known about each, and proposing future lines of inquiry that focus on the importance of including participants from a diverse set of backgrounds and across developmental periods, this review aims to stimulate research studies best designed to fill the gaps in our knowledge. By understanding how and when essentialism contributes to prejudice, we will be better equipped to use this early-emerging, but malleable, aspect of cognition to decrease prejudice and create a more equitable society.

Solutions of Extension and Limits of Some Cantorian Paradoxes

Cantor thought of the principles of set theory or intuitive principles as universal forms that can apply to any actual or possible totality. This is something, however, which need not be accepted if there are totalities which have a fundamental ontological value and do not conform to these principles. The difficulties involved are not related to ontological problems but with certain peculiar sets, including the set of all sets that are not members of themselves, the set of all sets, and the ordinal of all ordinals. These problematic totalities for intuitive theory can be treated satisfactorily with the Zermelo and Fraenkel (ZF) axioms or the von Neumann, Bernays, and Gödel (NBG) axioms, and the iterative conceptions expressed in them.

The Early Parenting Attitudes Questionnaire: Measuring Intuitive Theories of Parenting and Child Development

Parenting behaviors and decisions play an important role in determining children’s early environment. Are these behaviors driven by an intuitive theory of parenting – a coherent set of beliefs about child development and parent-child relationships? In exploratory work, we asked adults on Amazon Mechanical Turk to endorse a set of propositions about parenting and conducted exploratory factor analyses of their responses. Three distinct factors appeared in responses: an Affection and Attachment factor, an Early Learning factor, and a Rules and Respect factor. In an iterative process, we created a scale of items with subscales designed to measure these factors, which we call the Early Parenting Attitudes Questionnaire (EPAQ). We next conducted two studies with groups of parents (on Mechanical Turk and from the membership of a local museum) to estimate the validity of the new scale. We asked whether agreement with each subscale varied based on demographic factors and whether intuitive theories predicted self-reported parenting behaviors. The EPAQ provides an instrument to assess attitudes about parenting and child development, facilitating investigation of and intervention on parenting behaviors.

Intuitive theories inform children's beliefs about intergroup obligation

In addition to emerging from children's direct experiences with collaborative partners and groups, children's beliefs about obligation also arise from a process of intuitive theory-building in early childhood. On this account, it is possible for at least some of children's beliefs to emerge in the absence of specific experiences where obligations are held among fellow members of a group “we.”

Sticking to the evidence? A behavioral and computational case study of micro-theory change in the domain of magnetism.

Constructing an intuitive theory from data confronts learners with a “chicken-and-egg” problem: the laws can only be expressed in terms of the theory’s core concepts, but these concepts are only meaningful in terms of the role they play in the theory’s laws; how can a learner discover appropriate concepts and laws simultaneously, knowing neither to begin with? We explore how children can solve this chicken-and-egg problem in the domain of magnetism, drawing on perspectives from computational modeling and behavioral experiments. We present four- and five-year-olds with two different simplified magnet-learning tasks. Children appropriately constrain their beliefs to two hypotheses following ambiguous but informative evidence. Following a critical intervention they learn the correct theory. In the second study, children infer the correct number of categories given no information about the possible causal laws. Children’s hypotheses in these tasks are explained as rational inferences within a Bayesian computational framework.

Dual separable feedback systems govern firing rate homeostasis

Firing rate homeostasis (FRH) stabilizes neural activity. A pervasive and intuitive theory argues that a single variable, calcium, is detected and stabilized through regulatory feedback. A prediction is that ion channel gene mutations with equivalent effects on neuronal excitability should invoke the same homeostatic response. In agreement, we demonstrate robust FRH following either elimination of Kv4/Shal protein or elimination of the Kv4/Shal conductance. However, the underlying homeostatic signaling mechanisms are distinct. Eliminating Shal protein invokes Krüppel-dependent rebalancing of ion channel gene expression including enhanced slo, Shab, and Shaker. By contrast, expression of these genes remains unchanged in animals harboring a CRISPR-engineered, Shal pore-blocking mutation where compensation is achieved by enhanced IKDR. These different homeostatic processes have distinct effects on homeostatic synaptic plasticity and animal behavior. We propose that FRH includes mechanisms of proteostatic feedback that act in parallel with activity-driven feedback, with implications for the pathophysiology of human channelopathies.