Intuitive biological thinking in Chinese 8th graders

Xu, Yian; Coley, John D.

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105511

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…Human exceptionalist thinking about the natural world has been observed in children (Byrne, Grace, & Hanley, 2010; Coley, 2007) and adults (e.g., Arenson & Coley, 2018; Betz & Coley, 2022; Coley & Tanner, 2015; Coley et al., 2017) in the UK and the United States, as well as France (Quinn, Castéra, & Clément, 2015), Poland (Fortuna, Wróblewski, & Gorbaniuk, 2021), and China (although Chinese middle‐schoolers consistently show less HE than U.S. middle‐schoolers, Xu & Coley, 2022). However, despite early arguments that human‐centered thinking is a developmentally early cognitive default (e.g., Carey, 1985), HE is not universal, and instead seems tied to both culture and direct experiences in nature.…”

Section: Conceptualizing the Human–nature Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptualizing Human–Nature Relationships: Implications of Human Exceptionalist Thinking for Sustainability and Conservation

Kim

Betz

Helmuth

et al. 2023

Topics in Cognitive Science

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The ways in which people conceptualize the human–nature relationship have significant implications for proenvironmental values and attitudes, sustainable behavior, and environmental policy measures. Human exceptionalism (HE) is one such conceptual framework, involving the belief that humans and human societies exist independently of the ecosystems in which they are embedded, promoting a sharp ontological boundary between humans and the rest of the natural world. In this paper, we introduce HE in more depth, exploring the impact of HE on perceptions of the human–nature relationship, the role of culture in HE, and speculating on the origins of HE. We consider potential implications for environmental decision‐making, conservation and environmental science, and promoting proenvironmental behavior. We present empirical evidence on the pervasiveness and consequences of HE in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) populations, and potential interventions. Finally, we close with implications of human‐exceptionalist thinking on other sustainability‐related fields, including conservation practices, nature management, climate change adaptation, and environmental science. Understanding the cognitive and social drivers of this disconnect is vital on a planet now dominated by environmental change, as not only are humans increasingly impacted by natural disasters, but the choices they make can have ever more dire consequences for the sustainability of ecosystems.

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Section: Conceptualizing the Human–nature Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptualizing Human–Nature Relationships: Implications of Human Exceptionalist Thinking for Sustainability and Conservation

Kim

Betz

Helmuth

et al. 2023

Topics in Cognitive Science

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“…The reasons for these patterns of potential developmental difference are unclear. However, one possibility is that even though U.S. urban adults displayed greater ecological reasoning tendencies on our forced-choice measure-echoing Coley's (2012) original developmental findings with this task-the adults were simply more exceptionalist in outlook (Arias-Maldonado, 2015;Kim et al, 2023;Xu & Coley, 2022). That is, the negative effects of exceptionalism may have outweighed other cognitive variables that might have positively predicted environmental concern.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Are Humans Part of the Natural World? U.S. Children's and Adults’ Concept of Nature and its Relationship to Environmental Concern

Pizza

Kelemen

2023

Topics in Cognitive Science

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Understanding factors that promote conservation attitudes is essential given ongoing environmental crises and the need for sustainability. Our research adopted various close‐ and open‐ended tasks to explore: the extent to which U.S. urban adults (Study 1) and children (Study 2) have a basic conception of humans as part of nature, cognitive factors that predict more human‐inclusive concepts of nature, and, finally, the relationship of their nature concepts and other individual differences to environmental moral concern and biocentric reasoning. General environmental moral concern and biocentric moral reasoning were a focus because both variables have previously been linked to sustainable attitudes. Across studies, adults and children did not tend to categorize humans as part of nature except when induced or disposed to attribute mind or life to nature. Among adults, a human‐inclusive nature concept did not predict environmental moral concern or biocentrism. However, the degree of exposure to nature was positively predictive while a cluster of beliefs about humans as intrinsically unique, superior, and influential (human exceptionalism) was negatively predictive. Among children, a basic human‐inclusive concept of nature was related to environmental concern but only among children who also tended to reason in ecological terms. These findings have important implications for sustainability efforts: They suggest that environmental moral concern and biocentric attitudes may be enhanced over‐development by nature exposure and interventions that enduringly promote human‐inclusive concepts of nature and ecological‐systems understanding. Such intervention effects might be achieved by selectively inducing individuals to attribute mind and life to non‐human natural phenomena and scaffolding accurate mechanistic understanding of evolution and common ancestry, which may also help to inhibit the development and deleterious effects of human exceptionalism.

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“…We predict that children and adults would be most curious about minimally counterintuitive events, regardless of cultural upbringing. However, the content of their intuitive theories -and hence what kinds of events (minimally) violate those theories -is likely to vary (e.g., Watson-Jones et al, 2016;Busch et al, 2018;Xu & Coley, 2022), especially in later childhood as their theories are more strongly shaped by culture (e.g., Shtulman et al, 2019;Zhao et al, 2021). Future work should explore whether and how the content and consequences of curiosity-triggering events are influenced by cultural and other contextual factors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimally counterintuitive stimuli trigger greater curiosity than merely improbable stimuli

et al. 2023

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Intuitive biological thinking in Chinese 8th graders

Cited by 9 publications

References 77 publications

Conceptualizing Human–Nature Relationships: Implications of Human Exceptionalist Thinking for Sustainability and Conservation

Conceptualizing Human–Nature Relationships: Implications of Human Exceptionalist Thinking for Sustainability and Conservation

Are Humans Part of the Natural World? U.S. Children's and Adults’ Concept of Nature and its Relationship to Environmental Concern

Minimally counterintuitive stimuli trigger greater curiosity than merely improbable stimuli

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