Heritability
We will use Switched-at-birth tasks to assess participants’ beliefs
about the heritability of category-linked properties. Participants will
be told a story about a child who is born to a Fooly mother but has been
raised by an Iranian mother. Children in our sample know Iranians don’t
exhibit Fooly characteristics, so Iran is selected as the contrasting
culture. For instance, participants in the cultural condition will be
told: “One day a Fooly had a baby named Sharlie. Sharlie came from her
tummy. But right after Sharlie was born, Sharlie went to live with an
Iranian. The Iranian took care of Sharlie. She played with Sharlie, fed
Sharlie, and loved Sharlie. Sharlie grew up with the Iranian and never
saw the Fooly again. Her Fooly mother spins in circles when the sun goes
down. Iranians don’t.”
Participants will then be asked about whether Sharly will grow up to
have Fooly characteristics (heritability) or not (the effect of the
environment). For example, they will be asked, “when Sharly is older,
does Sharly spins in circles when the sun goes down, like Foolies, or
not, like Iranians?” Predicting that the child would grow up to poses a
familiar Fooly feature (like her biological mother) will be coded as an
essentialist answer. Two comprehension check questions will also be
asked (“whose tummy did Sharly come out of? And who took care of
Sharly?”).
In addition to questions used by Noyes and Keil (2020), we will also add
one more question to each trial. We ask participants “Is Sharly a
Zarpie or not?” (“yes” will be coded as an essentialist and “no” as
a non-essentialist response). This is to check inferences about category
membership beyond reasoning about shared category properties.