Department of Psychological Science, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA 30144, USA.
Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2022 Dec;224:105511. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105511. Epub 2022 Jul 26.
People spontaneously engage in systematic ways of thinking about biology such as human exceptionalism (the tendency of viewing human species as separate from nonhuman species), essentialism (the tendency of assuming category membership as determined by an underlying essence), and teleology (the tendency of seeing purpose as the cause). However, with the majority of past research drawn on Western samples, little is known about whether various types of intuitive biological thinking apply to non-Western contexts. To better understand the nature and cultural prevalence of intuitive biological thinking, we measured essentialist, teleological, and human exceptionalist thinking in a group of Chinese 8th graders. Results demonstrated the presence of all three types of intuitive biological thinking in Chinese middle schoolers, and comparisons with previously published data on U.S. 8th graders showed consistently less human exceptionalism and slightly higher essentialist thinking in China. As such, the current results highlight the prevalence of intuitive biological thinking in an East Asian sample while addressing the potential role of cultural inputs in shaping the way such thinking manifests.
人们会自发地以系统的方式思考生物学问题，例如人类特殊性（将人类视为与非人类物种不同的倾向）、本质主义（假设类别成员资格由潜在本质决定的倾向）和目的论（将目的视为原因的倾向）。然而，由于过去的大多数研究都基于西方样本，因此对于各种类型的直觉生物学思维是否适用于非西方语境知之甚少。为了更好地了解直觉生物学思维的本质和文化普遍性，我们在一群中国八年级学生中测量了本质主义、目的论和人类特殊性思维。结果表明，中国中学生存在所有三种类型的直觉生物学思维，与之前对美国八年级学生的研究数据进行比较后发现，中国学生的人类特殊性思维明显较少，本质主义思维略高。因此，当前的结果突出了直觉生物学思维在东亚样本中的普遍性，同时也探讨了文化输入在塑造这种思维表现方式方面的潜在作用。
