THE ESSENTIAL CHILD by Susan A. Gelman ( 9780195181982 ) - Books & Audio Books at Pickabook.co.uk

Item Details

Title:

THE ESSENTIAL CHILD
ORIGINS OF ESSENTIALISM IN EVERYDAY THOUGHT

By:

Susan A. Gelman

Format:

Paperback

List price:

£39.49

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£34.55

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12.5% off

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£4.94

ISBN 10:

0195181980

ISBN 13:

9780195181982

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Publisher:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS INC

Pub. date:

1 March, 2005

Series:

Oxford Series in Cognitive Development

Pages:

392

Description:

Numerous fields stake claims about essentialism but this is the first book to address the issues surrounding essentialism from the perspective of developmental psychology. Gelman synthesizes 15 years of empirical research on essentialism into a coherent framework, examining children's thinking and ways in which language influences thought. She argues that young children's use of concepts such as "dog," "man," or "intelligence," reflects their deep commitment to thepresence of these categories' properties that extends beyond the observable information about objects. The presence of this commitment in children also means that they do not come into the world as passive recipients of data, but rather have an organizational scheme that supports categories. Thisvolume will be of interest to developmental, cognitive, and social psychologists, as well as to scholars in cognitive science and philosophy.

Synopsis:

Essentialism is the idea that certain categories, such as "dog," "man," or "intelligence," have an underlying reality or true nature that gives objects their identity. Where does this idea come from? In this book, Susan Gelman argues that essentialism is an early cognitive bias. Young children's concepts reflect a deep commitment to essentialism, and this commitment leads children to look beyond the obvious in many converging ways: when learning words, generalizing knowledge to new category members, reasoning about the insides of things, contemplating the role of nature versus nurture, and constructing causal explanations. Gelman argues against the standard view of children as concrete or focused on the obvious, instead claiming that children have an early, powerful tendency to search for hidden, non-obvious features of things. She also attacks claims that children build up their knowledge of the world based on simple, associative learning strategies, arguing that children's concepts are embedded in rich folk theories.Parents don't explicitly teach children to essentialize; instead, during the preschool years, children spontaneously construct concepts and beliefs that reflect an essentialist bias. Essentialist accounts have been offered, in one form or another, for thousands of years, extending back at least to Aristotle and Plato. Yet this book is the first to address the issues surrounding essentialism from a psychological perspective. Gelman synthesizes over 15 years of empirical research on essentialism into a unified framework and explores the broader lessons that the research imparts concerning, among other things, human concepts, children's thinking, and the ways in which language influences thought. This volume will appeal to developmental, cognitive, and social psychologists, as well as to scholars in cognitive science and philosophy.

Illustrations:

numerous tables, figures, one illustration and 4 halftones

Publication:

Imprint:

Oxford University Press Inc

Returns:

Returnable

Some other items by this author:

BEYOND LABELING (PB)

CHILDHOOD COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (HB)

CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT