Deborah Kelemen
Biographic Data
| ID | 1490366 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Deborah Kelemen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Deborah |
| FAMILY NAME | Kelemen |
| SIGNATURE | KELEMEN D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8703-2344 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 103 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Paying attention to mindset measures
The Earth is Alive
Do people need to attribute agency to nature to morally care for it? The answer to this question has significant implications for our understanding of social cognitive effects on moral judgment. Despite its relevance during an environmental crisis, surprisingly little is known about the answer. Across two studies, we explored whether attributing agency to nonhuman natural entities like the Earth has a causal influence on environmental moral conce…
Çocuklar ‘Sezgisel Tanrıcı’mıdır? Doğada Amaç ve Tasarım Hakkında Akıl Yürütme
Farklı araştırma grupları, küçük çocukların amaç bakımından doğal olaylar hakkında akıl yürütmeye yönelik engin bir eğilime sahip olduklarını ve doğal varlıkların kökenlerini bilinç-bazlı açıklama usulüne doğru bir yönelime sahip olduklarını göstermektedir. Bu makale, bilişsel-gelişim araştırmalarının çeşitli alanlarından elde edilen son bulguları bir araya getirerek, aşağıdaki soruyu ele almak için, bu sonuçları daha da derinlemesine incelemekte…
Inhibiting intuition
The moral, or the story? Changing children's distributive justice preferences through social communication
Reasoning about nature’s agency and design in the cultural context of China
Research has found that non-religious adults have an automatic tendency to construe natural phenomena as intentionally created. Related work has focused on whether Western and non-Western adults spontaneously assign functions to natural phenomena but, to date, no studies have explored whether an assumption of intentional origins extends to a non-Western culture without an Abrahamic cultural tradition and associated design discourse. We therefore …
Question-asking in childhood
Cultural influences on the teleological stance
Recent research has suggested that humans have a robust tendency to default to teleological (i.e., purpose-based) explanations of natural phenomena. However, because samples have previously been heavily drawn from Western cultures, it is unclear whether this is a universal cognitive bias or whether prior findings are a product of Western philosophical and theological traditions. We evaluated these possibilities by administering a speeded judgment…
The impact of testimony on children’s moralization of novel actions
What leads children to moralize actions that cause no apparent harm? We hypothesized that adults' verbal instruction ("testimony"), as well as emotions such as disgust, would influence children's moralization of apparently harmless actions. To test this hypothesis, 7-year-old children were asked to render moral judgments of novel, seemingly victimless, body-directed or nature-directed actions after being exposed to adults' testimony or to an emot…
Hindering Harm and Preserving Purity
The issues of climate change and environmental degradation elicit diverse responses. This paper explores how an understanding of human moral psychology might be used to motivate conservation efforts. Moral concerns for the environment can relate to issues of harm (i.e., causing pain or impinging on another's welfare) or impurity (i.e., engaging in sacrilegious, polluting, or disgusting actions). Aversions to harm are linked to concern for current…
Professional physical scientists display tenacious teleological tendencies
Teleological explanations account for objects and events by reference to a functional consequence or purpose. Although they are popular in religion, they are unpopular in science: Physical scientists in particular explicitly reject them when explaining natural phenomena. However, prior research provides reasons to suspect that this explanatory form may represent a default explanatory preference. As a strong test of this hypothesis, we explored wh…
Just Rewards
Humans expect resources to be distributed fairly. They also show biases to construe all acts as intentional. This study investigates whether every unequal distribution is initially assumed to be intentional unfairness. Study 1 presents a control group of adults with a movie showing one individual accidentally receiving less reward than expected for a task. The experimental group was shown the same scenario, except that the individual was now in t…
The Human Function Compunction
Why Things Happen
Research indicates that young children, unlike adults, have a generalized tendency to view not only artifacts but also living and nonliving natural phenomena as existing for a purpose. To further understand this tendency's origin, the authors explored parents' propensity to invoke teleological explanation during explanatory conversations with their children. Over 2 weeks, Mexican-descent mothers were interviewed about question-answer exchanges wi…
"Are Children "Intuitive Theists
Separate bodies of research suggest that young children have a broad tendency to reason about natural phenomena in terms of purpose and an orientation toward intention-based accounts of the origins of natural entities. This article explores these results further by drawing together recent findings from various areas of cognitive developmental research to address the following question: Rather than being "artificialists" in Piagetian terms, are ch…
The scope of teleological thinking in preschool children
Why are rocks pointy? Children's preference for teleological explanations of th natural world
Teleological explanations are based on the assumption that an object or behavior exists for a purpose. Two studies explored the tendency of adults and first-, second-, and fourth-grade elementary-school children to explain the properties of living and nonliving natural kinds in teleological terms. Consistent with the hypothesis that young children possess a promiscuous teleological tendency, Study 1 found that children were more likely than adult…
"Are Children "Intuitive Theists
Separate bodies of research suggest that young children have a broad tendency to reason about natural phenomena in terms of purpose and an orientation toward intention-based accounts of the origins of natural entities. This article explores these results further by drawing together recent findings from various areas of cognitive developmental research to address the following question: Rather than being "artificialists" in Piagetian terms, are ch…
Why are rocks pointy? Children's preference for teleological explanations of th natural world
Teleological explanations are based on the assumption that an object or behavior exists for a purpose. Two studies explored the tendency of adults and first-, second-, and fourth-grade elementary-school children to explain the properties of living and nonliving natural kinds in teleological terms. Consistent with the hypothesis that young children possess a promiscuous teleological tendency, Study 1 found that children were more likely than adult…
Why Things Happen
Research indicates that young children, unlike adults, have a generalized tendency to view not only artifacts but also living and nonliving natural phenomena as existing for a purpose. To further understand this tendency's origin, the authors explored parents' propensity to invoke teleological explanation during explanatory conversations with their children. Over 2 weeks, Mexican-descent mothers were interviewed about question-answer exchanges wi…
Hindering Harm and Preserving Purity
The issues of climate change and environmental degradation elicit diverse responses. This paper explores how an understanding of human moral psychology might be used to motivate conservation efforts. Moral concerns for the environment can relate to issues of harm (i.e., causing pain or impinging on another's welfare) or impurity (i.e., engaging in sacrilegious, polluting, or disgusting actions). Aversions to harm are linked to concern for current…
Just Rewards
Humans expect resources to be distributed fairly. They also show biases to construe all acts as intentional. This study investigates whether every unequal distribution is initially assumed to be intentional unfairness. Study 1 presents a control group of adults with a movie showing one individual accidentally receiving less reward than expected for a task. The experimental group was shown the same scenario, except that the individual was now in t…
The scope of teleological thinking in preschool children
Why are rocks pointy? Children's preference for teleological explanations of th natural world
Teleological explanations are based on the assumption that an object or behavior exists for a purpose. Two studies explored the tendency of adults and first-, second-, and fourth-grade elementary-school children to explain the properties of living and nonliving natural kinds in teleological terms. Consistent with the hypothesis that young children possess a promiscuous teleological tendency, Study 1 found that children were more likely than adult…
"Are Children "Intuitive Theists
Separate bodies of research suggest that young children have a broad tendency to reason about natural phenomena in terms of purpose and an orientation toward intention-based accounts of the origins of natural entities. This article explores these results further by drawing together recent findings from various areas of cognitive developmental research to address the following question: Rather than being "artificialists" in Piagetian terms, are ch…
Why Things Happen
Research indicates that young children, unlike adults, have a generalized tendency to view not only artifacts but also living and nonliving natural phenomena as existing for a purpose. To further understand this tendency's origin, the authors explored parents' propensity to invoke teleological explanation during explanatory conversations with their children. Over 2 weeks, Mexican-descent mothers were interviewed about question-answer exchanges wi…
The Human Function Compunction
Just Rewards
Humans expect resources to be distributed fairly. They also show biases to construe all acts as intentional. This study investigates whether every unequal distribution is initially assumed to be intentional unfairness. Study 1 presents a control group of adults with a movie showing one individual accidentally receiving less reward than expected for a task. The experimental group was shown the same scenario, except that the individual was now in t…
Professional physical scientists display tenacious teleological tendencies
Teleological explanations account for objects and events by reference to a functional consequence or purpose. Although they are popular in religion, they are unpopular in science: Physical scientists in particular explicitly reject them when explaining natural phenomena. However, prior research provides reasons to suspect that this explanatory form may represent a default explanatory preference. As a strong test of this hypothesis, we explored wh…
Hindering Harm and Preserving Purity
The issues of climate change and environmental degradation elicit diverse responses. This paper explores how an understanding of human moral psychology might be used to motivate conservation efforts. Moral concerns for the environment can relate to issues of harm (i.e., causing pain or impinging on another's welfare) or impurity (i.e., engaging in sacrilegious, polluting, or disgusting actions). Aversions to harm are linked to concern for current…
Cultural influences on the teleological stance
Recent research has suggested that humans have a robust tendency to default to teleological (i.e., purpose-based) explanations of natural phenomena. However, because samples have previously been heavily drawn from Western cultures, it is unclear whether this is a universal cognitive bias or whether prior findings are a product of Western philosophical and theological traditions. We evaluated these possibilities by administering a speeded judgment…
The impact of testimony on children’s moralization of novel actions
What leads children to moralize actions that cause no apparent harm? We hypothesized that adults' verbal instruction ("testimony"), as well as emotions such as disgust, would influence children's moralization of apparently harmless actions. To test this hypothesis, 7-year-old children were asked to render moral judgments of novel, seemingly victimless, body-directed or nature-directed actions after being exposed to adults' testimony or to an emot…
Question-asking in childhood
Reasoning about nature’s agency and design in the cultural context of China
Research has found that non-religious adults have an automatic tendency to construe natural phenomena as intentionally created. Related work has focused on whether Western and non-Western adults spontaneously assign functions to natural phenomena but, to date, no studies have explored whether an assumption of intentional origins extends to a non-Western culture without an Abrahamic cultural tradition and associated design discourse. We therefore …
The moral, or the story? Changing children's distributive justice preferences through social communication
Çocuklar ‘Sezgisel Tanrıcı’mıdır? Doğada Amaç ve Tasarım Hakkında Akıl Yürütme
Farklı araştırma grupları, küçük çocukların amaç bakımından doğal olaylar hakkında akıl yürütmeye yönelik engin bir eğilime sahip olduklarını ve doğal varlıkların kökenlerini bilinç-bazlı açıklama usulüne doğru bir yönelime sahip olduklarını göstermektedir. Bu makale, bilişsel-gelişim araştırmalarının çeşitli alanlarından elde edilen son bulguları bir araya getirerek, aşağıdaki soruyu ele almak için, bu sonuçları daha da derinlemesine incelemekte…
Inhibiting intuition
Paying attention to mindset measures
The Earth is Alive
Do people need to attribute agency to nature to morally care for it? The answer to this question has significant implications for our understanding of social cognitive effects on moral judgment. Despite its relevance during an environmental crisis, surprisingly little is known about the answer. Across two studies, we explored whether attributing agency to nonhuman natural entities like the Earth has a causal influence on environmental moral conce…
Psychology (13 works) · Developmental psychology (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (8 works) · Cognitive psychology (7 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (7 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (6 works) · Teleology (6 works)