How cultural input shapes the development of idealized biological prototypes.

ABSTRACT: Young children in the U.S. tend to hold narrow, idealized prototypes for animal and social categories, focusing on ideas about how categories should be and ignoring category variability. The current studies (N = 281) tested how children's reliance on idealized prototypes might be shaped by adults' communication of common essentialist and teleological biases. In Study 1, 7- to 8-year-old U.S. children viewed more average members of novel animal categories as prototypical when they heard a teacher correct a generic statement about a characteristic feature and highlight how varied features serve varied functions. In Study 2, explanations about varied functions alone explained this effect for novel animals, with mixed effects for familiar animals; there was no additive effect of

SUBMITTER: Foster-Hanson E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12311798 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature