The Essential Child: Origins of Essentialism in Everyday Thought

ISBN-10: 0198035055
ISBN-13: 9780198035053
Category: Psychology
Pages: 392
Language: English
Published: 2003-03-27
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Author: Susan A. Gelman

Description

Essentialism is the idea that certain categories, such as "dog," "man," or "intelligence," have an underlying reality or true nature that gives objects their identity. Where does this idea come from? In this book, Susan Gelman argues that essentialism is an early cognitive bias. Young children's concepts reflect a deep commitment to essentialism, and this commitment leads children to look beyond the obvious in many converging ways: when learning words, generalizing knowledge to new category members, reasoning about the insides of things, contemplating the role of nature versus nurture, and constructing causal explanations. Gelman argues against the standard view of children as concrete or focused on the obvious, instead claiming that children have an early, powerful tendency to search for hidden, non-obvious features of things. She also attacks claims that children build up their knowledge of the world based on simple, associative learning strategies, arguing that children's concepts are embedded in rich folk theories. Parents don't explicitly teach children to essentialize; instead, during the preschool years, children spontaneously construct concepts and beliefs that reflect an essentialist bias. Essentialist accounts have been offered, in one form or another, for thousands of years, extending back at least to Aristotle and Plato. Yet this book is the first to address the issues surrounding essentialism from a psychological perspective. Gelman synthesizes over 15 years of empirical research on essentialism into a unified framework and explores the broader lessons that the research imparts concerning, among other things, human concepts, children's thinking, and the ways in which language influences thought. This volume will appeal to developmental, cognitive, and social psychologists, as well as to scholars in cognitive science and philosophy.

Get the book

Other editions

The Essential Child: Origins of Essentialism in Everyday Thought
- 2005-04-21
- 392 pages
- Ebook
- Oxford University Press
The Essential Child: Origins of Essentialism in Everyday Thought
- 2003
- 382 pages
- Paperback
- Oxford University Press, USA

Similar books

Designing Preschool Interventions: A Practitioner's Guide
By David W. Barnett, Susan H. Bell, Karen T. Carey
... 165 Thomson , C. , 52 , 59 Thurman , S. K. , 230 Thyer , B. A. , 308 Timberlake , W. , 165 Webster - Stratton , 237 , 251 , 253 , 366 Author Index.
Assessing and Treating Low Incidence/High Severity Psychological Disorders of Childhood
By Stefan C. Dombrowski, Karen L. Gischlar, Martin Mrazik
Haberstick, B.C., Lessem, J. M., Hopfer, C. J., Smolen, A., Ehringer, M.A., Timberlake, D., et al. (2005). Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and antisocial ...
The War Between Mentalism and Behaviorism: On the Accessibility of Mental Processes
By William R. Uttal
Some, like the “behavior systems” approach of Timberlake(1994)assume thatbehavior can be explained by a system of interactingmodules thatareeither built ...
The Psychology of B F Skinner
By William O'Donohue, Kyle E. Ferguson
However, there is clear evidence that this constant ratio does not always produce reinforcement (Timberlake & Allison, 1974). Second and, as we shall see ...
Finishing Well: Aging And Reparation In The Intergenerational Family
By Terry D. Hargrave, William T. Anderson
... 30, 32 Thomae, H., 40 Thompson, L., 23-24 Timberlake, E. M., 16 Tobin, S. S., ... E, 33 Wolfe, S. M., 81 Wolinsky, M. A., 85 Zarit, J., 11, 30, 31, 32, ...
The Social Insects: Their Origin and Evolution
By William Morton Wheeler
La Crisi Mondiale e Saggi Critici di Marxiano e Socialismo. Bologna, N. Zanichelli. ... TIMBERLAKE (P. H.): 1912. Experimental Parasitism, a Study of the ...
Principles and Practice of Behavioral Assessment
By Stephen N. Haynes, William Hayes O'Brien
... 143 Tharp, R. G., 80 Thompson, R. H., 250 Timberlake, W., 308,309 Tingey, ... B. W., 70 Ries, B.J., 268 Robins, E.,298 Robinson, S. L., 91,244 Roper, ...
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Approaches to a Science of Life: Word Pictures and Correlations Versus Working Models
By William T. Powers, Philip J. Runkel
... R.L., McGrath, Joseph E. McKeachie McPhail, Clark Miller, J.G. Mitchell, ... Jerry 469 Taylor 39 Timberlake, William 464 Tolman 72, 140, 142 Tucker, ...
Discovering Psychology: The Science of Mind
By John T. Cacioppo, Laura Freberg
... 247 Fromme, H., 523 Frost, P., 106 Frost, R., 161 Fryer, R., 291 Fuhrer, D., 4 Fukuyama, H., 408 Fulbright, R. K., 486 Fulero, S., 440 Fuligni, A. J., ...
Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding
By Scott Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, Laura Namy
... C. 638 Ernst, D. 704 Ernst, E. 278 Esch, T. 110 Eslinger, P.J. 448 Esposito-Smythers, ... E. 197 Frontera, W. R. 408 Frost, J. 332 Frost, R. 699 Frost, ...