Cimpian & Salomon (C&S) argue that human reasoning is endowed with a cognitive bias that emphasizes inherence as a primary causal mechanism to explain observed phenomena (e.g., why gold is yellow, why orange juice is served at breakfast, why European-Americans disproportionately hold America's economic wealth relative to other ethnic groups). The inherence heuristic is argued to be domain-general and developmentally primitive. Although C&S do not specifically formulate an evolutionary argument, they do identify key properties of this bias that are consistent with a more nativist claim about the origins of this heuristic. Although a broad array of data from social, cognitive, and developmental studies of inductive and causal reasoning can be accounted for by the proposed inherence heuristic framework, there is insufficient evidence to support the strong claim that this reasoning bias is itself innate, or even a human universal.
Researchers have recently noted that psychological studies often draw on WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) samples that can reason quite differently compared with more traditional societies (Henrich et al. Reference Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan2010). Most studies of induction and causal attribution, especially among developmental populations, have focused on these WEIRD samples. According to C&S, although cross-cultural differences in the output of the inherence heuristic may vary substantially, the basic processes outlined in their attribution model should apply universally. However, there may be good reason to doubt this claim.
An inherence bias in attribution is ironic, considering humans are unique among all creatures on Earth in that they have powerful mechanisms evolved for cultural transmission – the capacity both to be influenced by and to shape others in their local community (Csibra & Gergely Reference Csibra and Gergely2011; Herrmann et al. Reference Herrmann, Call, Lloreda, Hare and Tomasello2007; Richerson & Boyd Reference Richerson and Boyd2005). As such, anthropologists and psychologists have pointed to the importance of culture as both a mechanism for transmission and a mechanism for explanation (Henrich & Broesch Reference Henrich and Broesch2011; Henrich & McElreath Reference Henrich and McElreath2003; Miyamoto & Kitayama Reference Miyamoto and Kitayama2002; Morris & Peng Reference Morris and Peng1994; Norenzayan et al. Reference Norenzayan, Choi and Nisbett2002; Richerson & Boyd Reference Richerson and Boyd2005). To this end, cultural and evolutionary psychologists have argued for multiple mechanisms available to humans to facilitate causal reasoning (Astuti et al. Reference Astuti, Carey and Solomon2004; Atran Reference Atran1998; Bloch et al. Reference Bloch, Solomon and Carey2001; Moya et al., in press). These mechanisms can be broadly classified as genetic transmission (e.g., folkbiological reasoning) and cultural transmission (e.g., folksociological reasoning). Genetic transmission does not posit that people actually represent anything like modern biology's conception of genetic inheritance. Rather, it refers to the tendency to think that, at least for living natural kinds, an individual has a property it does because this was passed on at birth from the biological parent. By contrast, cultural transmission posits that external forces are responsible for the way something is (including horizontal and vertical transmission). Any observed cultural differences in the use of these reasoning strategies is thought to be the result of local differences in the deployment of these strategies, not in their availability. In contrast, C&S argue that a single process gives rise to outputs that appeal to inherent causes or to situational causes, but has a natural tendency to point toward (the easier to make) internal causes.
What is the evidence that humans may instead have multiple distinct mechanisms that support both genetic transmission (a close approximation of the inherence heuristic) and cultural transmission rather than a single process suggested by C&S? A recent cross-cultural examination of children and adults from Peru, Fiji, and the U.S. explored judgments about the transmission of traits for social groups including beliefs, skills, personality, group identity, and physical properties (Moya et al., in press). This work examined the use of folkbiology, folksociology, and domain-general structured learning mechanisms to make causal attributions about the transmission of these traits. These mechanisms differ in terms of their predictions of cross-cultural convergence and divergence in transmission judgments and in the sensitivity of these judgments to local differences (e.g., patterns of group migration and permeability of group boundaries). Crucial to the present argument, there is substantial cross-cultural variability in children's pattern of inference and in how their reasoning aligns with adults from their local communities, with children in Peru showing the opposite pattern as their adult counterparts. They also report that children in Fiji show a completely undifferentiated pattern, suggesting that they privilege neither genetic nor cultural transmission explanations when reasoning in the social domain. Evidence that children reason differently from their adult counterparts, especially in a manner that does not emphasize inherence, may pose a problem for the strong claim that the inherence heuristic represents a universal cognitive bias in reasoning.
C&S propose a single mechanism to help explain a broad pattern of phenomena in psychological reasoning – the tendency to imbue a causal explanation for an observed pattern in terms of features inherent to that entity under observation. However, a careful examination of ethnographic evidence and cross-cultural comparisons would suggest that C&S may be guilty of employing their own heuristic to explain the nature of that heuristic. Although an inherence heuristic may very well explain large domain-general patterns of causal attributions among WEIRD populations, cross-cultural comparisons point to the early divergence of mechanisms that emphasize cultural transmission from those that emphasize genetic (or inherent) forces.
The culturally appropriate deployment of these various reasoning biases may be part of an enculturation process that serves to reinforce group boundaries by helping to distinguish in-groups from out-groups. Indeed, an interesting proposal to explore is whether humans rely on culturally normative patterns of explanation as a marker of group boundaries just as they have been shown to do with other normative behaviors (e.g., language, dress, music, and food preferences). Surely, this is the case in terms of individual beliefs that circumscribe individual roles. (For example, prosecutors and opposing defense attorneys are in part differentiated by their belief in the underlying explanation for some behavior – was it the defendant's reckless abandon for the law that led her to rob a store or was she left with no choice in order to feed her family and pay the rent?) Whether broader patterns in the selective deployment of inherence and situational causal frameworks to explain regularities observed in the physical and social world serve as a prominent signal of groupness and one's cultural affiliation remains to be seen.
Cimpian & Salomon (C&S) argue that human reasoning is endowed with a cognitive bias that emphasizes inherence as a primary causal mechanism to explain observed phenomena (e.g., why gold is yellow, why orange juice is served at breakfast, why European-Americans disproportionately hold America's economic wealth relative to other ethnic groups). The inherence heuristic is argued to be domain-general and developmentally primitive. Although C&S do not specifically formulate an evolutionary argument, they do identify key properties of this bias that are consistent with a more nativist claim about the origins of this heuristic. Although a broad array of data from social, cognitive, and developmental studies of inductive and causal reasoning can be accounted for by the proposed inherence heuristic framework, there is insufficient evidence to support the strong claim that this reasoning bias is itself innate, or even a human universal.
Researchers have recently noted that psychological studies often draw on WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) samples that can reason quite differently compared with more traditional societies (Henrich et al. Reference Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan2010). Most studies of induction and causal attribution, especially among developmental populations, have focused on these WEIRD samples. According to C&S, although cross-cultural differences in the output of the inherence heuristic may vary substantially, the basic processes outlined in their attribution model should apply universally. However, there may be good reason to doubt this claim.
An inherence bias in attribution is ironic, considering humans are unique among all creatures on Earth in that they have powerful mechanisms evolved for cultural transmission – the capacity both to be influenced by and to shape others in their local community (Csibra & Gergely Reference Csibra and Gergely2011; Herrmann et al. Reference Herrmann, Call, Lloreda, Hare and Tomasello2007; Richerson & Boyd Reference Richerson and Boyd2005). As such, anthropologists and psychologists have pointed to the importance of culture as both a mechanism for transmission and a mechanism for explanation (Henrich & Broesch Reference Henrich and Broesch2011; Henrich & McElreath Reference Henrich and McElreath2003; Miyamoto & Kitayama Reference Miyamoto and Kitayama2002; Morris & Peng Reference Morris and Peng1994; Norenzayan et al. Reference Norenzayan, Choi and Nisbett2002; Richerson & Boyd Reference Richerson and Boyd2005). To this end, cultural and evolutionary psychologists have argued for multiple mechanisms available to humans to facilitate causal reasoning (Astuti et al. Reference Astuti, Carey and Solomon2004; Atran Reference Atran1998; Bloch et al. Reference Bloch, Solomon and Carey2001; Moya et al., in press). These mechanisms can be broadly classified as genetic transmission (e.g., folkbiological reasoning) and cultural transmission (e.g., folksociological reasoning). Genetic transmission does not posit that people actually represent anything like modern biology's conception of genetic inheritance. Rather, it refers to the tendency to think that, at least for living natural kinds, an individual has a property it does because this was passed on at birth from the biological parent. By contrast, cultural transmission posits that external forces are responsible for the way something is (including horizontal and vertical transmission). Any observed cultural differences in the use of these reasoning strategies is thought to be the result of local differences in the deployment of these strategies, not in their availability. In contrast, C&S argue that a single process gives rise to outputs that appeal to inherent causes or to situational causes, but has a natural tendency to point toward (the easier to make) internal causes.
What is the evidence that humans may instead have multiple distinct mechanisms that support both genetic transmission (a close approximation of the inherence heuristic) and cultural transmission rather than a single process suggested by C&S? A recent cross-cultural examination of children and adults from Peru, Fiji, and the U.S. explored judgments about the transmission of traits for social groups including beliefs, skills, personality, group identity, and physical properties (Moya et al., in press). This work examined the use of folkbiology, folksociology, and domain-general structured learning mechanisms to make causal attributions about the transmission of these traits. These mechanisms differ in terms of their predictions of cross-cultural convergence and divergence in transmission judgments and in the sensitivity of these judgments to local differences (e.g., patterns of group migration and permeability of group boundaries). Crucial to the present argument, there is substantial cross-cultural variability in children's pattern of inference and in how their reasoning aligns with adults from their local communities, with children in Peru showing the opposite pattern as their adult counterparts. They also report that children in Fiji show a completely undifferentiated pattern, suggesting that they privilege neither genetic nor cultural transmission explanations when reasoning in the social domain. Evidence that children reason differently from their adult counterparts, especially in a manner that does not emphasize inherence, may pose a problem for the strong claim that the inherence heuristic represents a universal cognitive bias in reasoning.
C&S propose a single mechanism to help explain a broad pattern of phenomena in psychological reasoning – the tendency to imbue a causal explanation for an observed pattern in terms of features inherent to that entity under observation. However, a careful examination of ethnographic evidence and cross-cultural comparisons would suggest that C&S may be guilty of employing their own heuristic to explain the nature of that heuristic. Although an inherence heuristic may very well explain large domain-general patterns of causal attributions among WEIRD populations, cross-cultural comparisons point to the early divergence of mechanisms that emphasize cultural transmission from those that emphasize genetic (or inherent) forces.
The culturally appropriate deployment of these various reasoning biases may be part of an enculturation process that serves to reinforce group boundaries by helping to distinguish in-groups from out-groups. Indeed, an interesting proposal to explore is whether humans rely on culturally normative patterns of explanation as a marker of group boundaries just as they have been shown to do with other normative behaviors (e.g., language, dress, music, and food preferences). Surely, this is the case in terms of individual beliefs that circumscribe individual roles. (For example, prosecutors and opposing defense attorneys are in part differentiated by their belief in the underlying explanation for some behavior – was it the defendant's reckless abandon for the law that led her to rob a store or was she left with no choice in order to feed her family and pay the rent?) Whether broader patterns in the selective deployment of inherence and situational causal frameworks to explain regularities observed in the physical and social world serve as a prominent signal of groupness and one's cultural affiliation remains to be seen.