Humans infer unseen traits of new species from essentialized hierarchical categories.

Evidence

These are fancy cognitive science terms for rather intuitive ideas. In using essentialized categories , learners implicitly assume that membership in a category (say, “cats”) results from some hidden essence deep inside that all members share. This essence cannot be removed by superficial changes to an individual. For example, suppose you operate on a cat and then paint it so that this individual now looks exactly like a skunk. Is it a cat or a skunk? Or, something new, like a “skat” or “cunk”? Children and adults will typically say that it is still a cat which currently looks like a skunk. By contrast, if a table is dismantled and reconstructed as a chair, no one thinks it’s still a table. It “is” what it “does.” Using category-based induction learners can readily extend information learned about one particular cat to all cats—if you see Felix go crazy over catnip, you readily infer that all cats will likely similarly respond to catnip. These essentialized categories are assembled, over development and cultural evolution, into increasingly complex hierarchical taxonomies, as shown in figure 5.4 . With such taxonomies in mind, category-based induction allows people to use their knowledge of one category, say “chimpanzees,” to make inferences about other categories. The confidence one puts in these inferences depends on the relationship in one’s mental taxonomy. For example, knowing a fact about chimpanzees (e.g., that they nurse their infants), one can readily infer that wolf moms also probably nurse baby wolves, since both are types of mammals. The tree of relationships also allows us to use taxonomic inheritance : learners may find out that one of their higher-level categories, like “birds,” possesses particular traits, such as laying eggs or having hollow bones. When they encounter a new type of bird, say a robin, they can readily infer that it likely lays eggs and has hollow bones without explicitly learning these facts about robins. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 267

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines folkbiological essentialized categories, hierarchical taxonomies, category-based induction, and taxonomic inheritance as the machinery of intuitive biological reasoning.
• XREF: The inference structure mirrors how the reader’s target work treats social-learning heuristics as cheap means of acquiring high-value knowledge. — connects to: Perceiving groups as natural kinds with essences drives sweeping stereotype generalization — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1388; Visible physical traits drive essentialist beliefs that link appearance to deeper traits — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 113; People categorize things by similarity to prototypes rather than by shared defining features — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide, 201 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Perceiving groups as natural kinds with essences drives sweeping stereotype generalization #expands (0.88) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1388
• Visible physical traits drive essentialist beliefs that link appearance to deeper traits #expands (0.82) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 113
• Human race classification descended from animal and plant taxonomy #exemplifies (0.80)
• Categories require an intuitive theory linking features, not just shared similarities #qualifies (0.79) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1382
• People categorize things by similarity to prototypes rather than by shared defining features #complicates (0.78) — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts, 201
• Stereotypes cohere through intuitive theories, not shared attributes #qualifies (0.76) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1383
• Genuinely new phenomena resist recognition because people interpret them through familiar categories #complicates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 48