My research program looks at how individuals acquire knowledge and beliefs about the world. By utilizing methods from psychology and anthropology, I cross-culturally investigate the nature and development of diverse psychological and biological conceptions (e.g., “person,” “spirit,” “natural selection”). I am especially interested in the intersection of psychological and biological causal reasoning and how both are used in everyday reasoning. Through my research on intuitive and scientific theory formation, I have developed education interventions aimed at promoting scientific literacy. These interventions employ realistic picture storybooks and have yielded substantial learning gains in elementary school-aged children.
I welcome open lines of communication to discuss my work with others also interested in origins conceptions and related themes. I come from a multi-disciplinary background and value opinions from all areas of the humanities and sciences. Supervisors: Paulo Sousa, Jesse Bering, and Deb Kelemen Address: 64 Cummington St.
Boston, Ma 02215
Two studies investigated children’s and their parents’ reasoning about
their mental and bodily st... more Two studies investigated children’s and their parents’ reasoning about their mental and bodily states during the time prior to biological conception–“preexistence.” Prior research has suggested that, in the absence of a religious script, children display untutored intuitions that they existed as largely disembodied emotional beings during preexistence. This research explored whether children who are being taught a formal theological doctrine about preexistence initially display similar default intuitive tendencies and whether these facilitate acquisition of the specific formal religious doctrine that they are learning. Adult (N = 38) and 7-to 12-year-old (N = 59) members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints judged whether their mental and bodily capacities functioned during preexistence. Results showed that by 11- to 12-years of age, children’s responses increasingly aligned with their parents’ doctrinally-accurate beliefs that they had a full range of mental states (i.e., epistemic, emotions, desires) and certain bodily capacities (i.e., perceptual, external body parts) during preexistence. However, at all ages, children deviated from their parents’ theologically- correct views, with children showing greatest consistency in privileging emotions as the continuous core of personhood. Findings converge with afterlife research to support conclusions that, across cultures, children are “intuitive eternalists” about psychological states. However, their intuitive tendencies also act as constraints on formal religious theory-building by primarily expediting the acquisition of those aspects of religious doctrine that are intuition-consistent not the doctrine as a whole. The process of becoming theologically correct therefore takes time and effort suggesting parallels to the process of acquiring formal scientific accuracy.
In this investigation, Balinese Hindus were interviewed to explore the impact of ritual practice ... more In this investigation, Balinese Hindus were interviewed to explore the impact of ritual practice on the flexibility and pattern of afterlife beliefs. Adults from communities where ancestral ritual practices are widespread were asked whether bodily and mental processes continue after death. Prior research with the ancestor-worshiping Malagasy Vezo revealed that their responses to such questions varied depending on narrative context (tomb vs. corpse scenario) and which conception of death they subsequently deployed: A religious conception, wherein death marks the beginning of a new form of * We would like to thank the Cognition, Religion, and Theology Project team, especially Richard Sosis for mentoring this project and Justin Barrett for making it all possible. We are indebted to the NaSH group, composed of some of Dan Sperber's former students, for the continuous exploration of the links between cognition and culture, and especially to Nicolas Baumard, Nicolas Claidière, Hugo Mercier, and Pierrick Bourrat for feedback on the results of this experiment. We wish to thank Rita Astuti for providing the Vezo adult data and who's research was an inspiration for this work. We also wish to thank Novianti Vardosy for being a research assistant and conducting questionnaires. We are grateful to the people of Bali and those individuals who gave their time to answer the questions for this experiment.
Misconceptions about adaptation by natural selection are widespread among adults and likely stem,... more Misconceptions about adaptation by natural selection are widespread among adults and likely stem, in part, from cognitive biases and intuitive theories observable in early childhood. Current educational guidelines that recommend delaying comprehensive instruction on the topic of adaptation until adolescence therefore raise concerns because children's scientifically inaccurate theories about species may be left unchallenged for many years, allowing them to entrench and become difficult to overcome. In consequence, this investigation sought to explore whether classrooms of kindergartners and second graders could acquire a basic but comprehensive understanding of adaptation from an intervention constructed around two picture storybooks that mechanistically explain natural selection. Learning was assessed in near and far transfer contexts both immediately and a month later. Kindergartners and second graders demonstrated substantial learning of biological information; however, second graders showed pronounced abilities to near and far generalize, immediately and over time. Results suggest that causally cohesive interventions with an emphasis on mechanistic explanation facilitate children's classroom learning of complex counterintuitive scientific ideas.
Research Findings: Educational guidelines recommend a delayed, piecemeal approach to instruction ... more Research Findings: Educational guidelines recommend a delayed, piecemeal approach to instruction on adaptation by natural selection. This approach is questionable given suggestions that older students’ pervasive misunderstandings about adaptation are rooted in cognitive biases that develop early. In response to this, Kelemen et al. (2014) recently showed that young children can learn a basic yet comprehensive explanation of adaptation by natural selection from a picture storybook intervention. However, this research was conducted in a laboratory-based setting with children from middle and higher socioeconomic backgrounds. To further explore the intervention’s efficacy, this investigation examined whether Kelemen et al.’s (2014, Experiment 2) findings extend to a more diverse sample of children tested in a more naturalistic setting, namely, after-school programs. After a 10-min picture storybook reading that described adaptation within a fictitious but realistic mammal species, 5- to 6- and 7- to 8-year-old children’s learning of adaptation was examined. Results revealed that younger and older children benefitted from the intervention; however, older children displayed pronounced learning and generalization. Practice or Policy: Findings confirm that children are capable of learning complex biological ideas and that comprehensive storybook interventions are simple but powerful teaching tools. Implications for instruction on natural selection are discussed.
Neglecting within-species variation plays a crucial role in students’ misconceptions about adapta... more Neglecting within-species variation plays a crucial role in students’ misconceptions about adaptation by natural selection. Prior research on the development of this propensity suggests this neglect is due to a strong early-arising essentialist bias to treat species as invariant. Across two studies, we examined the strength of this bias by exploring 5- to 6-year-olds’ and 7- to 8-year-olds’ assumptions about variation in contexts similar to those used in a recent early educational intervention teaching adaptation. In Study 1, children heard about fictitious animals’ physical and behavioral traits and their beneficial functions. They then judged whether all other species members would vary or be invariant on those traits. Across age groups, children showed a marginal essentialist tendency to reject variation. In Study 2, the same method was used, but all references to beneficial trait functions were removed. Five- to six-year-olds’ responding did not differ from Study 1, but 7- to 8-year-olds’ acceptance of variation increased to above chance rates. Parental religious and evolution beliefs correlated with younger but not older children’s responses. Together, findings suggest that under certain facilitative contexts children display greater abilities to represent variation than assumptions of a robust and inflexible essentialist bias would predict. By 7 to 8 years of age, children displayed autonomy from their parents’ beliefs and tended to expect variation. However, priming their teleological intuitions undermined their non-essentialist expectations. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.
This cross-cultural investigation explored children’s reasoning about their mental capacities dur... more This cross-cultural investigation explored children’s reasoning about their mental capacities during the earliest period of human physical existence—the prenatal period. For comparison, children’s reasoning about the observable period of infancy was also examined. Two hundred eighty-three 5- to 12-year-olds from two distinct cultures (urban Ecuador, rural indigenous Shuar) participated. Across cultures, children distinguished the fetal period from infancy, attributing fewer capacities to fetuses. However, for both the infancy and fetal periods, children from both cultures privileged the functioning of emotions and desires over epistemic states (i.e., abilities for thought and memory). Children’s justifications to questions about fetal mentality revealed that while epistemic states were generally regarded as requiring physical maturation to function, emotions and desires were seen as functioning as a de facto result of prenatal existence and in response to the prospect of future birth and being part of a social group. These results show that from early in development, children across cultures possess nuanced beliefs about the presence and functioning of mental capacities. Findings converge with recent results to suggest that there is an early arising bias to view emotions and desires as the essential inviolable core of human mentality. The present findings have implications for understanding the role that emerging cognitive biases play in shaping conceptions of human mentality across different cultures. They also speak to the cognitive foundations of moral beliefs about fetal rights.
Two studies investigated children’s and their parents’ reasoning about
their mental and bodily st... more Two studies investigated children’s and their parents’ reasoning about their mental and bodily states during the time prior to biological conception–“preexistence.” Prior research has suggested that, in the absence of a religious script, children display untutored intuitions that they existed as largely disembodied emotional beings during preexistence. This research explored whether children who are being taught a formal theological doctrine about preexistence initially display similar default intuitive tendencies and whether these facilitate acquisition of the specific formal religious doctrine that they are learning. Adult (N = 38) and 7-to 12-year-old (N = 59) members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints judged whether their mental and bodily capacities functioned during preexistence. Results showed that by 11- to 12-years of age, children’s responses increasingly aligned with their parents’ doctrinally-accurate beliefs that they had a full range of mental states (i.e., epistemic, emotions, desires) and certain bodily capacities (i.e., perceptual, external body parts) during preexistence. However, at all ages, children deviated from their parents’ theologically- correct views, with children showing greatest consistency in privileging emotions as the continuous core of personhood. Findings converge with afterlife research to support conclusions that, across cultures, children are “intuitive eternalists” about psychological states. However, their intuitive tendencies also act as constraints on formal religious theory-building by primarily expediting the acquisition of those aspects of religious doctrine that are intuition-consistent not the doctrine as a whole. The process of becoming theologically correct therefore takes time and effort suggesting parallels to the process of acquiring formal scientific accuracy.
In this investigation, Balinese Hindus were interviewed to explore the impact of ritual practice ... more In this investigation, Balinese Hindus were interviewed to explore the impact of ritual practice on the flexibility and pattern of afterlife beliefs. Adults from communities where ancestral ritual practices are widespread were asked whether bodily and mental processes continue after death. Prior research with the ancestor-worshiping Malagasy Vezo revealed that their responses to such questions varied depending on narrative context (tomb vs. corpse scenario) and which conception of death they subsequently deployed: A religious conception, wherein death marks the beginning of a new form of * We would like to thank the Cognition, Religion, and Theology Project team, especially Richard Sosis for mentoring this project and Justin Barrett for making it all possible. We are indebted to the NaSH group, composed of some of Dan Sperber's former students, for the continuous exploration of the links between cognition and culture, and especially to Nicolas Baumard, Nicolas Claidière, Hugo Mercier, and Pierrick Bourrat for feedback on the results of this experiment. We wish to thank Rita Astuti for providing the Vezo adult data and who's research was an inspiration for this work. We also wish to thank Novianti Vardosy for being a research assistant and conducting questionnaires. We are grateful to the people of Bali and those individuals who gave their time to answer the questions for this experiment.
Misconceptions about adaptation by natural selection are widespread among adults and likely stem,... more Misconceptions about adaptation by natural selection are widespread among adults and likely stem, in part, from cognitive biases and intuitive theories observable in early childhood. Current educational guidelines that recommend delaying comprehensive instruction on the topic of adaptation until adolescence therefore raise concerns because children's scientifically inaccurate theories about species may be left unchallenged for many years, allowing them to entrench and become difficult to overcome. In consequence, this investigation sought to explore whether classrooms of kindergartners and second graders could acquire a basic but comprehensive understanding of adaptation from an intervention constructed around two picture storybooks that mechanistically explain natural selection. Learning was assessed in near and far transfer contexts both immediately and a month later. Kindergartners and second graders demonstrated substantial learning of biological information; however, second graders showed pronounced abilities to near and far generalize, immediately and over time. Results suggest that causally cohesive interventions with an emphasis on mechanistic explanation facilitate children's classroom learning of complex counterintuitive scientific ideas.
Research Findings: Educational guidelines recommend a delayed, piecemeal approach to instruction ... more Research Findings: Educational guidelines recommend a delayed, piecemeal approach to instruction on adaptation by natural selection. This approach is questionable given suggestions that older students’ pervasive misunderstandings about adaptation are rooted in cognitive biases that develop early. In response to this, Kelemen et al. (2014) recently showed that young children can learn a basic yet comprehensive explanation of adaptation by natural selection from a picture storybook intervention. However, this research was conducted in a laboratory-based setting with children from middle and higher socioeconomic backgrounds. To further explore the intervention’s efficacy, this investigation examined whether Kelemen et al.’s (2014, Experiment 2) findings extend to a more diverse sample of children tested in a more naturalistic setting, namely, after-school programs. After a 10-min picture storybook reading that described adaptation within a fictitious but realistic mammal species, 5- to 6- and 7- to 8-year-old children’s learning of adaptation was examined. Results revealed that younger and older children benefitted from the intervention; however, older children displayed pronounced learning and generalization. Practice or Policy: Findings confirm that children are capable of learning complex biological ideas and that comprehensive storybook interventions are simple but powerful teaching tools. Implications for instruction on natural selection are discussed.
Neglecting within-species variation plays a crucial role in students’ misconceptions about adapta... more Neglecting within-species variation plays a crucial role in students’ misconceptions about adaptation by natural selection. Prior research on the development of this propensity suggests this neglect is due to a strong early-arising essentialist bias to treat species as invariant. Across two studies, we examined the strength of this bias by exploring 5- to 6-year-olds’ and 7- to 8-year-olds’ assumptions about variation in contexts similar to those used in a recent early educational intervention teaching adaptation. In Study 1, children heard about fictitious animals’ physical and behavioral traits and their beneficial functions. They then judged whether all other species members would vary or be invariant on those traits. Across age groups, children showed a marginal essentialist tendency to reject variation. In Study 2, the same method was used, but all references to beneficial trait functions were removed. Five- to six-year-olds’ responding did not differ from Study 1, but 7- to 8-year-olds’ acceptance of variation increased to above chance rates. Parental religious and evolution beliefs correlated with younger but not older children’s responses. Together, findings suggest that under certain facilitative contexts children display greater abilities to represent variation than assumptions of a robust and inflexible essentialist bias would predict. By 7 to 8 years of age, children displayed autonomy from their parents’ beliefs and tended to expect variation. However, priming their teleological intuitions undermined their non-essentialist expectations. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.
This cross-cultural investigation explored children’s reasoning about their mental capacities dur... more This cross-cultural investigation explored children’s reasoning about their mental capacities during the earliest period of human physical existence—the prenatal period. For comparison, children’s reasoning about the observable period of infancy was also examined. Two hundred eighty-three 5- to 12-year-olds from two distinct cultures (urban Ecuador, rural indigenous Shuar) participated. Across cultures, children distinguished the fetal period from infancy, attributing fewer capacities to fetuses. However, for both the infancy and fetal periods, children from both cultures privileged the functioning of emotions and desires over epistemic states (i.e., abilities for thought and memory). Children’s justifications to questions about fetal mentality revealed that while epistemic states were generally regarded as requiring physical maturation to function, emotions and desires were seen as functioning as a de facto result of prenatal existence and in response to the prospect of future birth and being part of a social group. These results show that from early in development, children across cultures possess nuanced beliefs about the presence and functioning of mental capacities. Findings converge with recent results to suggest that there is an early arising bias to view emotions and desires as the essential inviolable core of human mentality. The present findings have implications for understanding the role that emerging cognitive biases play in shaping conceptions of human mentality across different cultures. They also speak to the cognitive foundations of moral beliefs about fetal rights.
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Papers by Natalie Emmons
their mental and bodily states during the time prior to biological
conception–“preexistence.” Prior research has suggested that, in the
absence of a religious script, children display untutored intuitions that
they existed as largely disembodied emotional beings during preexistence.
This research explored whether children who are being taught
a formal theological doctrine about preexistence initially display similar
default intuitive tendencies and whether these facilitate acquisition
of the specific formal religious doctrine that they are learning. Adult
(N = 38) and 7-to 12-year-old (N = 59) members of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints judged whether their mental and bodily
capacities functioned during preexistence. Results showed that by 11-
to 12-years of age, children’s responses increasingly aligned with their
parents’ doctrinally-accurate beliefs that they had a full range of
mental states (i.e., epistemic, emotions, desires) and certain bodily
capacities (i.e., perceptual, external body parts) during preexistence.
However, at all ages, children deviated from their parents’ theologically-
correct views, with children showing greatest consistency in
privileging emotions as the continuous core of personhood. Findings
converge with afterlife research to support conclusions that, across
cultures, children are “intuitive eternalists” about psychological states.
However, their intuitive tendencies also act as constraints on formal
religious theory-building by primarily expediting the acquisition of
those aspects of religious doctrine that are intuition-consistent not
the doctrine as a whole. The process of becoming theologically correct
therefore takes time and effort suggesting parallels to the process of
acquiring formal scientific accuracy.
about adaptation are rooted in cognitive biases that develop
early. In response to this, Kelemen et al. (2014) recently showed that young children can learn a basic yet comprehensive explanation of adaptation by natural selection from a picture storybook intervention. However, this research was conducted in a laboratory-based setting with children from middle and higher socioeconomic backgrounds. To further explore the intervention’s efficacy, this investigation examined whether Kelemen et al.’s (2014, Experiment 2) findings extend to a more diverse sample of children tested in a more naturalistic setting, namely, after-school programs. After a 10-min picture storybook reading that described adaptation within a fictitious but realistic mammal species, 5- to 6- and 7- to 8-year-old children’s learning of adaptation was examined. Results revealed that younger and older children benefitted from the intervention; however, older children displayed pronounced
learning and generalization. Practice or Policy: Findings confirm
that children are capable of learning complex biological ideas and that comprehensive storybook interventions are simple but powerful teaching tools. Implications for instruction on natural selection are discussed.
their mental and bodily states during the time prior to biological
conception–“preexistence.” Prior research has suggested that, in the
absence of a religious script, children display untutored intuitions that
they existed as largely disembodied emotional beings during preexistence.
This research explored whether children who are being taught
a formal theological doctrine about preexistence initially display similar
default intuitive tendencies and whether these facilitate acquisition
of the specific formal religious doctrine that they are learning. Adult
(N = 38) and 7-to 12-year-old (N = 59) members of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints judged whether their mental and bodily
capacities functioned during preexistence. Results showed that by 11-
to 12-years of age, children’s responses increasingly aligned with their
parents’ doctrinally-accurate beliefs that they had a full range of
mental states (i.e., epistemic, emotions, desires) and certain bodily
capacities (i.e., perceptual, external body parts) during preexistence.
However, at all ages, children deviated from their parents’ theologically-
correct views, with children showing greatest consistency in
privileging emotions as the continuous core of personhood. Findings
converge with afterlife research to support conclusions that, across
cultures, children are “intuitive eternalists” about psychological states.
However, their intuitive tendencies also act as constraints on formal
religious theory-building by primarily expediting the acquisition of
those aspects of religious doctrine that are intuition-consistent not
the doctrine as a whole. The process of becoming theologically correct
therefore takes time and effort suggesting parallels to the process of
acquiring formal scientific accuracy.
about adaptation are rooted in cognitive biases that develop
early. In response to this, Kelemen et al. (2014) recently showed that young children can learn a basic yet comprehensive explanation of adaptation by natural selection from a picture storybook intervention. However, this research was conducted in a laboratory-based setting with children from middle and higher socioeconomic backgrounds. To further explore the intervention’s efficacy, this investigation examined whether Kelemen et al.’s (2014, Experiment 2) findings extend to a more diverse sample of children tested in a more naturalistic setting, namely, after-school programs. After a 10-min picture storybook reading that described adaptation within a fictitious but realistic mammal species, 5- to 6- and 7- to 8-year-old children’s learning of adaptation was examined. Results revealed that younger and older children benefitted from the intervention; however, older children displayed pronounced
learning and generalization. Practice or Policy: Findings confirm
that children are capable of learning complex biological ideas and that comprehensive storybook interventions are simple but powerful teaching tools. Implications for instruction on natural selection are discussed.