Cimpian & Salomon (C&S) propose the inherence heuristic (IH), a cognitive process by which people explain observed patterns of experience by appealing to inherent aspects of the elements that make up those patterns. This original and fascinating perspective impressively unifies many disparate psychological phenomena, ranging from people's explanations of social behaviors and achievement, to system justification, to nominal realism, to reasoning errors in the moral domain.
We note two important theoretical implications of the findings that C&S provide. First, the work joins other developmental accounts in stressing the importance of theory-driven knowledge from an early age (Carey Reference Carey2009; Gelman & Waxman Reference Gelman and Waxman2009; Gopnik & Schulz Reference Gopnik and Schulz2004; Wellman Reference Wellman and Goswami2010). Contrary to some popular models (Sloutsky & Fisher Reference Sloutsky and Fisher2008), children do not merely form associative links between co-occurring features, but they construct explanatory models to account for such patterns. Second, by suggesting that essentialism emerges from a domain-general mechanism that is involved in many cognitive tasks, C&S argue that essentialism is not an evolved, modular adaptation (contra Atran Reference Atran1998; Pinker Reference Pinker1994). Other domain-general cognitive mechanisms may underlie psychological essentialism as well, including: an appearance–reality distinction, induction from property clusters, causal determinism, tracking identity over time, and deference to experts (Gelman Reference Gelman2003). It remains for future work to determine how these different components might emerge in development.
C&S present a framework in which people view regularities as inherent, not contingent or resulting from historical accident. One might therefore conclude that the human mind focuses preferentially on fixed and unchanging features. Yet people are also often highly sensitive to change and nonconstancy (Woodman et al. Reference Woodman, Vogel and Luck2012), and much of our social interactions revolve around historical conditions (e.g., ownership; inferences about thoughts, desires, and underlying motivations, which nearly always link to history). Indeed, even 2-year-olds are highly sensitive to historical features of an item, including prior ownership (Friedman et al. Reference Friedman, Van de Vondervoort, Defeyter and Neary2013; Gelman et al. Reference Gelman, Manczak and Noles2012). So when do people care about history, and when do they not?
The clue, we think, lies in C&S's point that IH preferentially produces explanations for patterns or regularities. The implied converse, though not explicitly discussed, is that specific representations are more likely to activate attention to noninherent, contingent, historical links. Thus, for example, although people typically focus on inherent features to explain the general pattern that girls wear pink, we propose that they may typically assume historically contingent features when faced with specific facts (e.g., Alice is crying) (Frazier et al. Reference Frazier, Gelman and Wellman2009). On this account, different kinds of information are accessible, depending on the question at hand. People do not have a singular “shotgun” that primarily accesses inherent features, but rather a flexible conceptual system that at times selects inherent features but at times selects noninherent features (e.g., recent events).
This distinction between generic patterns and specific instances suggests that the IH may itself be undergirded by a more foundational cognitive bias – namely, a realist assumption about environmental regularities. It is the regularities per se that are perceived as real, stable, and nonaccidental (Gelman et al. Reference Gelman, Ware and Kleinberg2010; Rhodes et al. Reference Rhodes, Leslie and Tworek2012). This would then dovetail with the essentialist claim that people treat categories (which are among the most frequently encountered environmental regularities) as stable natural kinds.
This alternative interpretation of the data suggests that some of the apparatus described as part of IH may follow from realism rather than underpinning it.
Consider one of the examples that C&S sketch out: When explaining why girls wear pink, it is suggested that some inherently feminine aspect of pink (e.g., delicacy) is easily accessed and is combined with the easily activated idea that girls are also inherently delicate. Such explanations are described as a starting point for the emergence of essentialism; once children begin to assume that inherent reasons account for observed patterns, they then build up the notion of an “essence” on the basis of this assumption.
However, many explanations of patterns seem not to rest on a match of inherent elements of constituents, but rather on an assumption that the regularity in question has an inherent basis that generates these features. For example, we suggest that it is not the case that explaining why girls wear pink relies on a match between inherent features of pink and girls, but rather the reverse; by assuming that it is natural for girls to wear pink, an individual is prompted to search for an explanation that fits this framework (e.g., generating the inference that pink is delicate). Thus, we see judgments of a feature's inherent match with a category as a consequence of realism rather than as a building block of an emergent essentialist intuition. On this view, the process depicted in Figure 2 of the target article (in which people notice a pattern, look for causal explanations, access a mental shotgun to find inherent features, and so forth) is epiphenomenal rather than the process by which the IH comes to be.
Supporting this argument, consider that children routinely appeal to inherent bases when reasoning about entirely novel features of categories (Cimpian & Markman Reference Cimpian and Markman2009; Gelman Reference Gelman2003). In such cases, the content of children's mental shotguns regarding these features is likely impoverished, if not entirely empty. C&S suggest that, in such cases, the heuristic “will output a more inchoate sense that some to-be-determined combination of inherent features is responsible in some to-be-determined fashion for the observed pattern” (sect. 4.3, para. 1). And yet, it is exactly the routine accessibility of inherent features of the constituents, and the match between these features, that are seen as necessary ingredients in activating the heuristic. It would seem more parsimonious to assume that, in these cases, it is not accessibility of the causal story per se that is crucial, but rather some broader assumptions about the regularities involved.
In the end, we agree with C&S's claim that “infants (and laypeople in general)…show a deep-seated motivation to uncover the underlying structure of reality” (sect. 2.2, para. 1). It is this realist assumption – that there is an underlying structure to perceived regularities – that we argue may be one of the foundations of essentialism.
Cimpian & Salomon (C&S) propose the inherence heuristic (IH), a cognitive process by which people explain observed patterns of experience by appealing to inherent aspects of the elements that make up those patterns. This original and fascinating perspective impressively unifies many disparate psychological phenomena, ranging from people's explanations of social behaviors and achievement, to system justification, to nominal realism, to reasoning errors in the moral domain.
We note two important theoretical implications of the findings that C&S provide. First, the work joins other developmental accounts in stressing the importance of theory-driven knowledge from an early age (Carey Reference Carey2009; Gelman & Waxman Reference Gelman and Waxman2009; Gopnik & Schulz Reference Gopnik and Schulz2004; Wellman Reference Wellman and Goswami2010). Contrary to some popular models (Sloutsky & Fisher Reference Sloutsky and Fisher2008), children do not merely form associative links between co-occurring features, but they construct explanatory models to account for such patterns. Second, by suggesting that essentialism emerges from a domain-general mechanism that is involved in many cognitive tasks, C&S argue that essentialism is not an evolved, modular adaptation (contra Atran Reference Atran1998; Pinker Reference Pinker1994). Other domain-general cognitive mechanisms may underlie psychological essentialism as well, including: an appearance–reality distinction, induction from property clusters, causal determinism, tracking identity over time, and deference to experts (Gelman Reference Gelman2003). It remains for future work to determine how these different components might emerge in development.
C&S present a framework in which people view regularities as inherent, not contingent or resulting from historical accident. One might therefore conclude that the human mind focuses preferentially on fixed and unchanging features. Yet people are also often highly sensitive to change and nonconstancy (Woodman et al. Reference Woodman, Vogel and Luck2012), and much of our social interactions revolve around historical conditions (e.g., ownership; inferences about thoughts, desires, and underlying motivations, which nearly always link to history). Indeed, even 2-year-olds are highly sensitive to historical features of an item, including prior ownership (Friedman et al. Reference Friedman, Van de Vondervoort, Defeyter and Neary2013; Gelman et al. Reference Gelman, Manczak and Noles2012). So when do people care about history, and when do they not?
The clue, we think, lies in C&S's point that IH preferentially produces explanations for patterns or regularities. The implied converse, though not explicitly discussed, is that specific representations are more likely to activate attention to noninherent, contingent, historical links. Thus, for example, although people typically focus on inherent features to explain the general pattern that girls wear pink, we propose that they may typically assume historically contingent features when faced with specific facts (e.g., Alice is crying) (Frazier et al. Reference Frazier, Gelman and Wellman2009). On this account, different kinds of information are accessible, depending on the question at hand. People do not have a singular “shotgun” that primarily accesses inherent features, but rather a flexible conceptual system that at times selects inherent features but at times selects noninherent features (e.g., recent events).
This distinction between generic patterns and specific instances suggests that the IH may itself be undergirded by a more foundational cognitive bias – namely, a realist assumption about environmental regularities. It is the regularities per se that are perceived as real, stable, and nonaccidental (Gelman et al. Reference Gelman, Ware and Kleinberg2010; Rhodes et al. Reference Rhodes, Leslie and Tworek2012). This would then dovetail with the essentialist claim that people treat categories (which are among the most frequently encountered environmental regularities) as stable natural kinds.
This alternative interpretation of the data suggests that some of the apparatus described as part of IH may follow from realism rather than underpinning it.
Consider one of the examples that C&S sketch out: When explaining why girls wear pink, it is suggested that some inherently feminine aspect of pink (e.g., delicacy) is easily accessed and is combined with the easily activated idea that girls are also inherently delicate. Such explanations are described as a starting point for the emergence of essentialism; once children begin to assume that inherent reasons account for observed patterns, they then build up the notion of an “essence” on the basis of this assumption.
However, many explanations of patterns seem not to rest on a match of inherent elements of constituents, but rather on an assumption that the regularity in question has an inherent basis that generates these features. For example, we suggest that it is not the case that explaining why girls wear pink relies on a match between inherent features of pink and girls, but rather the reverse; by assuming that it is natural for girls to wear pink, an individual is prompted to search for an explanation that fits this framework (e.g., generating the inference that pink is delicate). Thus, we see judgments of a feature's inherent match with a category as a consequence of realism rather than as a building block of an emergent essentialist intuition. On this view, the process depicted in Figure 2 of the target article (in which people notice a pattern, look for causal explanations, access a mental shotgun to find inherent features, and so forth) is epiphenomenal rather than the process by which the IH comes to be.
Supporting this argument, consider that children routinely appeal to inherent bases when reasoning about entirely novel features of categories (Cimpian & Markman Reference Cimpian and Markman2009; Gelman Reference Gelman2003). In such cases, the content of children's mental shotguns regarding these features is likely impoverished, if not entirely empty. C&S suggest that, in such cases, the heuristic “will output a more inchoate sense that some to-be-determined combination of inherent features is responsible in some to-be-determined fashion for the observed pattern” (sect. 4.3, para. 1). And yet, it is exactly the routine accessibility of inherent features of the constituents, and the match between these features, that are seen as necessary ingredients in activating the heuristic. It would seem more parsimonious to assume that, in these cases, it is not accessibility of the causal story per se that is crucial, but rather some broader assumptions about the regularities involved.
In the end, we agree with C&S's claim that “infants (and laypeople in general)…show a deep-seated motivation to uncover the underlying structure of reality” (sect. 2.2, para. 1). It is this realist assumption – that there is an underlying structure to perceived regularities – that we argue may be one of the foundations of essentialism.