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102More than a body: Mind perception and the nature of objectificationJournal of Personality and Social Psychology 101 (6): 1207-1220. 2011.According to models of objectification, viewing someone as a body induces de-mentalization, stripping away their psychological traits. Here evidence is presented for an alternative account, where a body focus does not diminish the attribution of all mental capacities but, instead, leads perceivers to infer a different kind of mind. Drawing on the distinction in mind perception between agency and experience, it is found that focusing on someone's body reduces perceptions of agency but increases p…Read more
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98Are mental states assessed relative to what most people “should” or “would” think? Prescriptive and descriptive components of expected attitudesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (4): 341. 2010.For Knobe, observers evaluate mental states by comparing agents' statements with the attitudes they are expected to hold. In our analysis, Knobe's model relies primarily on what agents should think, and little on expectancies of what they would think. We show the importance and complexity of including descriptive and prescriptive norms if one is to take expectancies seriously
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94The Ordinary Concept of ValuingPhilosophical Issues 19 (1): 131-147. 2009.This paper relates an empirical study demonstrating asymmetry in the concept of valuing.
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85Acting intentionally and acting for a reasonJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 27 (1): 119-122. 2007.In earlier work, I relied on a commonly-held view about the relationship between the concept of acting intentionally and the concept of performing a behavior in order to achieve a goal. Eric Wiland responds that it was actually a mistake to rely on this view and that the relationship between these concepts is far more complex than was previously thought. I now think that Wiland may be right to reject my earlier approach, and I therefore provide additional empirical support for his basic claim. 2…Read more
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73Value-based Essentialism: Essentialist Beliefs about Social Groups with Shared Values.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. forthcoming.Psychological essentialism has played an important role in social psychology, informing influential theories of stereotyping and prejudice as well as questions about wrongdoers’ accountability and their ability to change. In the existing literature, essentialism is often tied to beliefs in shared biology—i.e., the extent to which members of a social group are seen as having the same underlying biological features. Here we investigate the possibility of “value-based essentialism” in which people …Read more
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68What comes to mind?Cognition 194 (C): 104057. 2020.When solving problems, like making predictions or choices, people often “sample” possibilities into mind. Here, we consider whether there is structure to the kinds of thoughts people sample by default—that is, without an explicit goal. Across three experiments we found that what comes to mind by default are samples from a probability distribution that combines what people think is likely and what they think is good. Experiment 1 found that the first quantities that come to mind for everyday beha…Read more
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64Reviews (review)Philosophical Psychology 18 (6). 2005.JOHANNES ROESSLER & NAOMI EILAN (Eds.)Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003ISBN 0199245622 (pbk, 415 pages, $39.95)In The Principles of Psychology, William James presents an interesting case of a ‘...
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61La Philosophie Expérimentale (edited book)Vuibert. 2012.La philosophie expérimentale est un mouvement récent qui tente de faire progresser certains débats philosophiques grâce à l'utilisation de méthodes expérimentales. À la différence de la philosophie conventionnelle qui privilégie l'analyse conceptuelle ou la spéculation, la philosophie expérimentale préconise le recours aux études empiriques pour mieux comprendre les concepts philosophiques. Apparue il y a une dizaine d'années dans les pays anglo-saxons, cette approche constitue actuellement l'un…Read more
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54Kindhood and Essentialism: Evidence from LanguageIn Marjorie Rhodes (ed.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior, . 2020.A large body of existing research suggests that people think very differently about categories that are seen as kinds (e.g., women) and categories that are not seen as kinds (e.g., people hanging out in the park right now). Drawing on work in linguistics, we suggest that people represent these two sorts of categories using fundamentally different representational formats. Categories that are not seen as kinds are simply represented as collections of individuals. By contrast, when it comes to kin…Read more
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51Qu'est-ce que la philosophie expérimentale?RÉPHA, revue étudiante de philosophie analytique 2 49-53. 2010.
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51The distinction between desire and intention: A folk-conceptual analysisIn Bertram Malle, L. J. Moses & Dare Baldwin (eds.), Intentions and Intentionality: Foundations of Social Cognition, Mit Press. pp. 45--67. 2001.
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47Not all mutualism is fair, and not all fairness is mutualisticBehavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (1). 2013.The target article convincingly argues that mutualistic cooperation is supported by partner choice. However, we will suggest that mutualistic cooperation is not the basis of fairness; instead, fairness is based on impartiality. In support of this view, we show that adults are willing to destroy others' resources to avoid inequality, a result predicted by impartiality but not by mutualistic cooperation
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42The person as moralist account and its alternativesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (4): 353-365. 2010.The commentators offer helpful suggestions at three levels: (1) explanations for the particular effects discussed in the target article; (2) implications of those effects for our understanding of the role of moral judgment in human cognition; and (3) more theoretical questions about the overall relationship between ordinary cognition and systematic science. The present response takes up these three issues in turn
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34Editorial: Cultural Variation and CognitionReview of Philosophy and Psychology 14 (2): 339-347. 2023.
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28People's thinking plans adapt to the problem they're trying to solveCognition 243 (C): 105669. 2024.Much of our thinking focuses on deciding what to do in situations where the space of possible options is too large to evaluate exhaustively. Previous work has found that people do this by learning the general value of different behaviors, and prioritizing thinking about high-value options in new situations. Is this good-action bias always the best strategy, or can thinking about low-value options sometimes become more beneficial? Can people adapt their thinking accordingly based on the situation…Read more
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26Philosophical Implications of Inflationary CosmologyBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (1): 47-67. 2006.Recent developments in cosmology indicate that every history having a non-zero probability is realized in infinitely many distinct regions of spacetime. Thus, it appears that the universe contains infinitely many civilizations exactly like our own, as well as infinitely many civilizations that differ from our own in any way permitted by physical laws. We explore the implications of this conclusion for ethical theory and for the doomsday argument. In the infinite universe, we find that the doomsd…Read more
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17Experimental Philosophy: Volume 2 (edited book)Oxford University Press USA. 2013.Experimental Philosophy: Volume 2 contains fourteen articles -- thirteen previously published and one new -- that reflect the fast-moving changes in the field over the last five years. The field of experimental philosophy is one of the most innovative and exciting parts of the current philosophical landscape; it has also engendered controversy. Proponents argue that philosophers should employ empirical research, including the methods of experimental psychology, to buttress their philosophical cl…Read more
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17Purposes in Law and in Life: An Experimental Investigation of Purpose AttributionCanadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 36 (1): 1-36. 2023.There has been considerable debate in legal philosophy about how to attribute purposes to rules. Separately, within cognitive science, there has been a growing body of research concerned with questions about how people ordinarily attribute purposes. Here, we argue that these two separate fields might be connected by experimental jurisprudence. Across four studies, we find evidence for the claim that people use the same criteria to attribute purposes to physical objects and to rules. In both case…Read more
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15Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, Volume 5 (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2024.The new field of experimental philosophy has emerged as the methods of psychological science have been brought to bear on traditional philosophical issues. Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy is the place to go to see outstanding new work in the field. It features papers by philosophers, papers by psychologists, and papers co-authored by people in both disciplines. The series heralds the emergence of a truly interdisciplinary field in which people from different disciplines are working tog…Read more
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3Can one act for a reason without acting intentionally?In Constantine Sandis (ed.), New Essays on the Explanation of Action, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 169--183. 2009.
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2Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk IntuitionsIn Joshua Michael Knobe & Shaun Nichols (eds.), Experimental Philosophy, Oup Usa. 2008.
New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Metaphilosophy |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |