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Generics (e.g., "Ravens are black") express generalizations about categories or their members. Previous research found that generics about animals are interpreted as broadly true of members of a kind, yet also accepted based on minimal evidence. This asymmetry is important for suggesting a mechanism by which unfounded generalizations may flourish; yet, little is known whether this finding extends to generics about groups of people (heretofore, "social generics"). Accordingly, in four preregistered studies (n = 665), we tested for an inferential asymmetry for generics regarding novel groups of animals versus people. Participants were randomly assigned to either an Implied Prevalence task (given a generic, asked to estimate the prevalence of a property) or a Truth-Conditions task (given prevalence information, asked whether a generic was true or false). A generic asymmetry was found in both domains, at equivalent levels. The asymmetry also extended to properties varying in valence (dangerous and neutral). Finally, there were differences as a function of property valence in the Implied Prevalence task and a small but consistent interaction between domain and prevalence in the Truth-Conditions task. We discuss the implications of these results for the semantics of generics, theoretical accounts of the asymmetry, and the relation between generics and stereotyping.

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In certain domains, people represent some of an individual's properties (e.g., a tiger's ferocity), but not others (e.g., a tiger's being in the zoo), as stemming from the assumed "essence" of the individual's category. How do children identify which properties of an individual are essentialized and which are not? Here, we examine whether formal explanations-that is, explanations that appeal to category membership (e.g., "That's ferocious because it's a tiger")-help children to identify which properties are essentialized. We investigated this question in two domains: animal kinds (Study 1) and social categories (specifically, gender; Studies 2 and 3). Across studies, we introduced children to novel behaviors and preferences of individuals using either a formal explanation or closely matched wording that did not express a formal explanation. To measure the extent to which children essentialized the novel properties, we assessed their inferences about the stability, innateness, and generalizability of these properties. In Study 1 (N = 104; 61 girls, 43 boys; predominantly White and multiracial children from high-income backgrounds), we found that formal explanations led 5- and 6-year-old children to view novel properties of individual animals as more stable across time. In Studies 2 and 3 (total N = 163; 84 girls, 79 boys; predominantly White, Asian, and multiracial children from high-income backgrounds), we found that formal explanations led 6-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, to view novel properties of individual girls and boys as more stable across contexts. These studies highlight an important mechanism by which formal explanations guide conceptual development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

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This research addressed the question of whether children understand proper names differently from descriptions. We examined how children extend these two types of expressions from an initial object (a truck) owned by the experimenter to two identical objects created by transforming the initial object, both owned by the experimenter. Adults and 5/6-year-olds extended a name ("Tommy") to only one post-transformation object, but extended a description ("my truck") to both objects. Adults and 7-year-olds (but not 5/6-year-olds) also extended a description modeled as a name ("called My Truck") to only one object. Like adults, children understand that proper names identify unique individuals, but that descriptions identify properties.

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When reasoning about a representation (e.g., a toy lion), children often engage in "iconic realism," whereby representations are reported to have properties of their real-life referents. The present studies examined an inverse difficulty that we dub "representational blindness": overlooking (i.e., being 'blind' to) a representation's objective, non-symbolic features. In three experiments (N = 302), children (3-6 years) and adults saw a series of representations (pictures and toys) and were tested on how often they endorsed a property that was true of the real-world referent (e.g., reporting that a toy lion is dangerous; iconic realism) or rejected a property that was true of the representation (e.g., denying that a toy elephant can be lifted with one hand; representational blindness). We found that representational blindness and realism were separable tendencies. Children (and to a lesser extent, adults) displayed both, but at different rates for pictures than for toys. We conclude that children's reasoning about representations includes a bias to overlook the features of the representation itself. Further, although pictures and toys are both representations, they provoke ontologically distinct interpretations. We discuss the implications of these results for a variety of important conceptual tasks, including learning to read, draw, or objectively evaluate scientific evidence.

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Hobbes' (1672/1913) famous puzzle of the Ship of Theseus - in which a wooden ship's parts are replaced plank by plank, and the old planks are subsequently reassembled to create a second ship - has been the source of debate about the criteria that underlie human judgments of individual artifact persistence. This puzzle has led some philosophers to the paradoxical conclusion that an artifact observed at one time is the same persisting individual as two artifacts seen at a later time. We argue that prior discussions of the puzzle have conflated property persistence (judged in conjunction with a description, like "Theseus' ship") with individual persistence (judged in conjunction with a designator, like "X"). In three studies, we manipulated the linguistic expression (description, designator) used to label the original object in the puzzle. When participants solved the puzzle in conjunction with a description, they gave systematically high ratings to any object (either or both) that could be inferred to match the description. Yet when participants solved the same puzzle in conjunction with a designator, they gave significantly higher ratings to one post-change object (the object made of the reassembled old parts) than to the other post-change object (the object made of replacement parts). The results suggest that individual persistence judgments concerning the puzzle (i.e., those made in conjunction with a designating expression) are not paradoxical but rather are based on the continuity of the object's parts/material.

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