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Essentialist Beliefs About Bodily Transplants in the United States and India

dc.contributor.authorMeyer, Meredithen_US
dc.contributor.authorLeslie, Sarah‐janeen_US
dc.contributor.authorGelman, Susan A.en_US
dc.contributor.authorStilwell, Sarah M.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-06-18T18:32:31Z
dc.date.available2014-07-01T15:53:18Zen_US
dc.date.issued2013-05en_US
dc.identifier.citationMeyer, Meredith; Leslie, Sarah‐jane ; Gelman, Susan A.; Stilwell, Sarah M. (2013). "Essentialist Beliefs About Bodily Transplants in the United States and India." Cognitive Science 37(4): 668-710. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/98212>en_US
dc.identifier.issn0364-0213en_US
dc.identifier.issn1551-6709en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/98212
dc.description.abstractPsychological essentialism is the belief that some internal, unseen essence or force determines the common outward appearances and behaviors of category members. We investigated whether reasoning about transplants of bodily elements showed evidence of essentialist thinking. Both A mericans and I ndians endorsed the possibility of transplants conferring donors' personality, behavior, and luck on recipients, consistent with essentialism. Respondents also endorsed essentialist effects even when denying that transplants would change a recipient's category membership (e.g., predicting that a recipient of a pig's heart would act more pig‐like but denying that the recipient would become a pig). This finding runs counter to predictions from the strongest version of the “minimalist” position (Strevens,2000), an alternative to essentialism. Finally, studies asking about a broader range of donor‐to‐recipient transfers indicated that I ndians essentialized more types of transfers than A mericans, but neither sample essentialized monetary transfer. This suggests that results from bodily transplant conditions reflect genuine essentialism rather than broader magical thinking.en_US
dc.publisherAddison‐Wesleyen_US
dc.publisherWiley Periodicals, Inc.en_US
dc.subject.otherCultureen_US
dc.subject.otherPsychologyen_US
dc.subject.otherCausal Reasoningen_US
dc.subject.otherConceptsen_US
dc.subject.otherPsychological Essentialismen_US
dc.titleEssentialist Beliefs About Bodily Transplants in the United States and Indiaen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
dc.rights.robotsIndexNoFollowen_US
dc.subject.hlbsecondlevelNeurosciencesen_US
dc.subject.hlbtoplevelHealth Sciencesen_US
dc.description.peerreviewedPeer Revieweden_US
dc.identifier.pmid23363027en_US
dc.description.bitstreamurlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98212/1/cogs12023.pdf
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/cogs.12023en_US
dc.identifier.sourceCognitive Scienceen_US
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dc.owningcollnameInterdisciplinary and Peer-Reviewed


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