Carrot-eaters and creature-believers:

Question 1

Author

Answer 1

Gelman, S. A., & Heyman

Question 1

Title

Answer 1

Carrot-eaters and creature-believers: The effects of lexicalization on children’s inferences about social categories.

Question 2

research question

Answer 2

How does the way social categories are lexicalized (i.e., how they are named or labeled) influence children’s inferences about those categories and their behavior toward members of those groups?”

Question 3

methods

Answer 3

experiments with 4- to 6-year-old children,

Group Labeling: Children were told about two groups characterized by specific behaviors or preferences.

Inference Tasks: Children were asked to infer traits, preferences, or abilities of group members based on the labels.

Behavioral Responses: Children were observed for any biases or preferential treatment toward members of one group over the other.

Question 4

results

Answer 4

Children made different inferences about groups depending on how they were labeled.

viewed groups with neutral or descriptive labels (like “carrot-eaters”) as more flexible and less fixed in traits compared to groups labeled with more arbitrary or belief-based names (like “creature-believers”)

more likely to make negative inferences and exhibit less favorable behavior toward the “creature-believers”