Ori Friedman
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 4600838 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Ori Friedman |
| PRENOMES | Ori |
| SOBRENOME | Friedman |
| ASSINATURA | FRIEDMAN O |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Waterloo |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2346-9787 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 54 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 40 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 54 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2004 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
The Counterfactual Detective
We reveal a way that people use counterfactual thinking: They use it to infer motives and solve mysteries about what happened in the unseen past. In three preregistered experiments, participants (total N = 1,242) were asked to determine which of two competitors in a contest had sabotaged a third competitor. Participants often succeeded in identifying the culprit when counterfactual reasoning could be used to judge whether each suspect profited fr…
Older but not younger preschoolers use efficiency to evaluate how well goals are completed.
618; 48% female and 52% male; tested in a predominantly White region) scenarios where pairs of agents approached objects using paths that varied in length and efficiency, and then asked children which agent did a better job. In Experiments 1A and 1B, children aged 3 and 4 evaluated the agents using path length, but not efficiency. In Experiments 2A, 2B, and 3, children used path length to assess which agent did a better job from around age 4. But…
Not All Authors Are Equal
Generative AI tools are increasingly being used for creative and academic work. How do people morally evaluate plagiarism involving AI-generated content, and do they judge it differently than when the source is a human? Investigating these questions can provide insight into why people condemn plagiarism; for instance, whether this is due to harm to the original creator or the false benefit gained by the plagiarizer. We examined people’s moral eva…
The domino error
The Moral Standing of Created Agents
Created agents are a staple of fiction but technological advances are making them increasingly viable as a reality. These creations introduce thorny questions about their moral standing, including questions about whether they can be owned. In seven preregistered experiments ( N = 2,499), we investigated whether created agents are more likely to be seen as owned if they cause harm. This prediction was suggested by the hypothesis that ownership is …
Cognition outstanding reviewer awards - 2025
The Double Standard of Ownership
Owners are often blamed when their property causes harm but might not receive corresponding praise when their property does good. This suggests a double standard of ownership, wherein owning property poses risks for moral blame that are not balanced with equal opportunities for credit. We investigated this possibility in three preregistered experiments on 746 US residents. Participants read vignettes where agentic property (e.g., animals, robots)…
Not just social networks
Time from structure
How young children come to recommend resource choices that reduce waste
Whereas adults are often motivated to minimize material waste, young children are notoriously wasteful of material resources. Wastefulness in children could arise because they do not see the value in minimizing material waste. We explored this possibility in four experiments on children aged 3–7 (total N = 514). Children saw vignettes where an agent chose between two resources: a smaller resource that resulted in minimal waste or a larger one tha…
Children use proximity and ability to infer distinct kinds of counterfactual closeness
Counterfactual outcomes (i.e., events that did not happen) vary in their closeness to reality. Whereas some are viewed as distant possibilities, others are seen as close, barely unrealized outcomes. Here, we investigate whether young children distinguish between two kinds of counterfactual closeness: one based on proximity and the other on ability. In two experiments, 4-7-year-olds (total N = 304) saw stories where two agents lost a race against …
Up and down
People often think about how things could have been better or worse. People make these upward and downward comparisons in different situations and with differing emotional consequences. We investigated whether the direction of counterfactual comparisons affects people's judgements of counterfactual closeness. In four preregistered experiments (N = 2,142), participants saw vignettes where agents lost or won a luck-based game. In Experiments 1, 2, …
Close counterfactuals and almost doing the impossible
Doing things efficiently
We examined why people prefer simple explanations. • We suggest the preference arises because people value completing goals efficiently. • Participants evaluated the appeal of explanations and causal processes. • Participants generally preferred simple methods as both explanations and processes. • Statistical information diminished and reversed this preference in parallel for both judgments. People often find simple explanations more satisfying t…
Emotions before actions
Adults expect people to be biased by sunk costs, but young children do not. We tested between two accounts for why children overlook the sunk cost bias. On one account, children do not see sunk costs as causal. The other account posits that children see sunk costs as causal, but unlike adults, think future actions cannot make up for sunk costs. These accounts make opposing predictions about whether children should see sunk costs as affecting emot…
An Adversarial Collaboration on Dirty Money
Across four preregistered experiments on American adults (total N = 968), and five supplemental experiments (total N = 869), we examined four accounts that might explain people’s aversion to “dirty money” (i.e., money earned in immoral ways): (a) they think it is morally tainted, (b) they care about illicit ownership, (c) they do not wish to profit from moral transgressions, and (d) accepting dirty money might imply an endorsement of the immoral …
Improbable but possible
Young children tend to deny the possibility of events that violate their expectations, including events that are merely improbable, like making onion-flavored ice cream or owning a crocodile as a pet. Could this tendency be countered by teaching children more valid strategies for judging possibility? We explored this question by training children aged 4-12 ( n = 128) to consider either the similarity between the target event and unusual events th…
Children (and many adults) use perceptual similarity to assess relative impossibility
People see some impossible events as more impossible than others. For example, walking through a solid wall seems more impossible if it is made of stone rather than wood. Across four experiments, we investigated how children and adults assess the relative impossibility of events, contrasting two kinds of information they may use: perceptual information and causal knowledge. In each experiment, participants were told about a wizard who could magic…
When children choose fantastical events in fiction
Although stories for children often feature supernatural and fantastical events, children themselves often prefer realistic events when choosing what should happen in a story. In two experiments, we investigated whether 3- to 5-year-olds (total N = 240 from diverse backgrounds) might be more likely to include fantastical events in stories about familiar fantasy characters. In Experiment 1, children saw stories about fantasy or real-world characte…
Why Children Believe They Are Owned
Owners decide what happens to their property, and so adults typically view autonomous beings as non-owned. If children likewise consider autonomy when judging what is owned, this may have implications for how they view themselves. If children believe that parents have power over them, that they themselves lack autonomy, and that only the autonomous cannot be owned, this may lead them to believe that they are owned by their parents. Across three e…
Calculated Feelings
Developing the ability to accurately infer others’ emotions is crucial for children’s cognitive development. Here, we offer a new theoretical perspective on how children develop this ability. We first review recent work showing that with age, children increasingly use probability to infer emotions. We discuss how these findings do not fit with prominent accounts of how children understand emotions, namely the script account and the theory of mind…
Probability and intentional action
Local or foreign? Flexibility in children’s preference for similar others
Children have a robust social preference for people similar to them, like those who share their language, accent, and race. In the present research, we show that this preference can diminish when children consider who they want to learn about. Across three experiments, 4- to 6-year-olds (total N = 160; 74 female, 86 male, from the Waterloo region in Canada, a predominantly White and middle-class region) and adults ( N = 103) saw pairs of characte…
Novelty preferences depend on goals
Attributing ownership to hold others accountable
Preschoolers infer ownership from “control of permission”
Owners control permission-they forbid and permit others to use their property. So it is reasonable to assume that someone controlling permission over an object is its owner. The authors tested whether preschoolers infer ownership in this way. In the first experiment, 4- and 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, chose as owner of an object a character who granted or denied another character permission to use it. In Experiment 2, older 3-year-olds chos…
She bought the unicorn from the pet store
In two experiments (N = 64), we told 6- to 7-year-olds about improbable or impossible outcomes (Experiment 1) and about impossible outcomes concerning ordinary or magical agents (Experiment 2). In both experiments, children claimed that the outcomes were impossible and could not happen, but nonetheless generated realistic and natural explanations for the outcomes. These findings show that 6- to 7-year-olds are strongly inclined to provide natural…
Creation in judgments about the establishment of ownership
Mine, yours, no one’s
Two experiments examined children's understanding of how ownership affects object use. In Experiment 1, 84 children age 4-6 were asked what a person was allowed to do with a human-made object that either belonged to the person or belonged to someone else. In Experiment 2, 44 children age 4-5 were asked what a person was allowed to do with a natural object that belonged to the person, belonged to someone else, or belonged to no one. Children were …
Just pretending can be really learning
Children can acquire generic knowledge by sharing in pretend play with more knowledgeable partners. We report 3 experiments in which we investigated how this learning occurs-how children draw generalizations from pretense, and whether they resist doing so for pretense that is unrealistic. In all experiments, preschoolers watched pretend scenarios about an animal and were then asked questions about real animals. In Experiment 1, 3- and 4-year-olds…
Toddlers Assert and Acknowledge Ownership Rights
Two studies compared toddler owners and non‐owners of toys. Children of 24 and 30 months were supplied with toys and told that they were owners. In play with friends, owners were more likely than non‐owners to maintain possession, claim toys verbally (‘mine’), and non‐verbally, by attempting to regain their own toys in their friends' possession. Children communicated their ownership early in each episode and in preference to other information abo…
Artifacts and natural kinds
People's behavior in relation to objects depends on whether they are owned. But how do people judge whether objects are owned? We propose that people expect human-made objects (artifacts) to be more likely to be owned than naturally occurring objects (natural kinds), and we examine the development of these expectations in young children. Experiment 1 found that when shown pictures of familiar kinds of objects, 3-year-olds expected artifacts to be…
Preschoolers can infer general rules governing fantastical events in fiction
Young children are frequently exposed to fantastic fiction. How do they make sense of the unrealistic and impossible events that occur in such fiction? Although children could view such events as isolated episodes, the present experiments suggest that children use such events to infer general fantasy rules. In 2 experiments, 2- to 4-year-olds were shown scenarios in which 2 animals behaved unrealistically (N = 78 in Experiment 1, N = 94 in Experi…
Young children infer psychological ownership from stewardship
Although people take care of their own possessions, they also engage in stewardship and take care of things they do not own. Here, we examined what young children infer when they observe stewardship behavior of an object. Through four experiments on predominantly middle-class Canadian children (total N = 350, 168 girls and 182 boys from a predominantly White and middle-class region), we found that children as young as 4 or 5 infer feelings of own…
Young children’s understanding of the limits and benefits of group ownership
Group ownership is ubiquitous-property is owned by countries, corporations, families, and clubs. However, people cannot understand group ownership by simply relying on their conceptions of ownership by individuals, as group ownership is subject to complexities that do not arise when property is individually owned. We report 6 experiments investigating whether children ages 3 to 6 (N = 540) understand group ownership. In Experiments 1 and 2 childr…
Core mechanisms in ‘theory of mind’
Preschoolers infer ownership from “control of permission”
Owners control permission-they forbid and permit others to use their property. So it is reasonable to assume that someone controlling permission over an object is its owner. The authors tested whether preschoolers infer ownership in this way. In the first experiment, 4- and 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, chose as owner of an object a character who granted or denied another character permission to use it. In Experiment 2, older 3-year-olds chos…
Ownership and object history
Appropriate behavior in relation to an object often requires judging whether it is owned and, if so, by whom. The authors propose accounts of how people make these judgments. Our central claim is that both judgments often involve making inferences about object history. In judging whether objects are owned, people may assume that artifacts (e.g., chairs) are owned and that natural objects (e.g., pinecones) are not. However, people may override the…
Twenty-one reasons to care about the psychological basis of ownership
The psychological basis of ownership is a neglected area of research; the authors consider twenty-one disparate reasons why it is worth investigating
Artifacts and natural kinds
People's behavior in relation to objects depends on whether they are owned. But how do people judge whether objects are owned? We propose that people expect human-made objects (artifacts) to be more likely to be owned than naturally occurring objects (natural kinds), and we examine the development of these expectations in young children. Experiment 1 found that when shown pictures of familiar kinds of objects, 3-year-olds expected artifacts to be…
Just pretending can be really learning
Children can acquire generic knowledge by sharing in pretend play with more knowledgeable partners. We report 3 experiments in which we investigated how this learning occurs-how children draw generalizations from pretense, and whether they resist doing so for pretense that is unrealistic. In all experiments, preschoolers watched pretend scenarios about an animal and were then asked questions about real animals. In Experiment 1, 3- and 4-year-olds…
Preschoolers and toddlers use ownership to predict basic emotions
People's emotions often depend on ownership. We report 3 experiments showing that preschoolers and toddlers consider ownership in predicting basic emotions. In Experiment 1, 3-year-olds were sensitive to ownership when predicting how a character would feel when objects went missing. Experiment 2 found that 3- to 5-year-olds consider ownership when predicting emotional reactions to harmless violations of ownership rights, and Experiment 3 showed 2…
Toddlers Assert and Acknowledge Ownership Rights
Two studies compared toddler owners and non‐owners of toys. Children of 24 and 30 months were supplied with toys and told that they were owners. In play with friends, owners were more likely than non‐owners to maintain possession, claim toys verbally (‘mine’), and non‐verbally, by attempting to regain their own toys in their friends' possession. Children communicated their ownership early in each episode and in preference to other information abo…
Mine, yours, no one’s
Two experiments examined children's understanding of how ownership affects object use. In Experiment 1, 84 children age 4-6 were asked what a person was allowed to do with a human-made object that either belonged to the person or belonged to someone else. In Experiment 2, 44 children age 4-5 were asked what a person was allowed to do with a natural object that belonged to the person, belonged to someone else, or belonged to no one. Children were …
Preschoolers can infer general rules governing fantastical events in fiction
Young children are frequently exposed to fantastic fiction. How do they make sense of the unrealistic and impossible events that occur in such fiction? Although children could view such events as isolated episodes, the present experiments suggest that children use such events to infer general fantasy rules. In 2 experiments, 2- to 4-year-olds were shown scenarios in which 2 animals behaved unrealistically (N = 78 in Experiment 1, N = 94 in Experi…
Creation in judgments about the establishment of ownership
Young children’s understanding of the limits and benefits of group ownership
Group ownership is ubiquitous-property is owned by countries, corporations, families, and clubs. However, people cannot understand group ownership by simply relying on their conceptions of ownership by individuals, as group ownership is subject to complexities that do not arise when property is individually owned. We report 6 experiments investigating whether children ages 3 to 6 (N = 540) understand group ownership. In Experiments 1 and 2 childr…
She bought the unicorn from the pet store
In two experiments (N = 64), we told 6- to 7-year-olds about improbable or impossible outcomes (Experiment 1) and about impossible outcomes concerning ordinary or magical agents (Experiment 2). In both experiments, children claimed that the outcomes were impossible and could not happen, but nonetheless generated realistic and natural explanations for the outcomes. These findings show that 6- to 7-year-olds are strongly inclined to provide natural…
Beyond belief
Improbable events are surprising. However, it is unknown whether children consider probability when attributing surprise to other people. We conducted four experiments that investigate this issue. In the first three experiments, children saw stories in which two characters received a red gumball from two gumball machines with different distributions, and children then judged which character was more surprised. Experiment 1 (N = 120) shows develop…
Preschoolers are sensitive to accent distance
Can children tell how different a speaker's accent is from their own? In Experiment 1 (N = 84), four- and five-year-olds heard speakers with different accents and indicated where they thought each speaker lived relative to a reference point on a map that represented their current location. Five-year-olds generally placed speakers with stronger accents (as judged by adults) at more distant locations than speakers with weaker accents. In contrast, …
Young children use supply and demand to infer desirability
In 4 experiments, we show that young children (total N = 290) use information about supply and demand to infer the desirability of resources. In each experiment, children saw scenarios about sandwiches from different shops, which varied in supply (number of sandwiches produced for the day) and demand (number of customers attracted). In Experiments 1 and 2, 5- to 6-year-olds gave higher desirability ratings for sandwiches from shops with greater t…
An advantage for ownership over preferences in children’s future thinking
The ability to anticipate the future improves significantly across the preschool years. Whereas 5-year-olds understand that they will prefer adult items in the future, 3-year-olds indicate they will continue to prefer child items. We explore these age-related changes in future-oriented cognition by comparing children's inferences about their future preferences with judgments about their future ownership. In Experiment 1, we show that 3- to 5-year…
Distant lands make for distant possibilities
Young children often deny that improbable events are possible. We examined whether children aged 5-7 ( N = 300) might have more success in recognizing that these events are possible if they considered whether the events could happen in a distant country. Children heard about improbable and impossible events (Experiments 1A, 1B, and 2) and about ordinary events (Experiment 2) and either judged whether the events could happen in a distant country o…
Children’s Beliefs About Possibility Differ Across Dreams, Stories, and Reality
Are children’s judgments about what can happen in dreams and stories constrained by their beliefs about reality? This question was explored across three experiments, in which four hundred and sixty-nine 4- to 7-year-olds judged whether improbable and impossible events could occur in a dream, a story, or reality. In Experiment 1, children judged events more possible in dreams than in reality. In Experiment 2, children also judged events more possi…
Young children infer feelings of ownership from habitual use
People sometimes feel as if they own items that do not actually belong to them. These feelings of ownership affect people in diverse contexts and provide a striking example of how feelings can conflict with reality. Across 6 experiments, we investigated young children's (N = 614) and adults' (N = 243) understanding of these feelings. In Experiment 1, children aged 4 to 7 inferred that an agent who habitually used a publicly owned item would have …
A Similarity Heuristic in Children’s Possibility Judgments
Children often judge that strange and improbable events are impossible, but the mechanisms behind their reasoning remain unclear. This article (N = 250) provides evidence that young children use a similarity heuristic that compares potential events to similar known events to determine whether events are possible. Experiment 1 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds who hear about improbable events go on to judge that similar improbable events can happen. Ex…
Toddlers and Preschoolers Understand That Some Preferences Are More Subjective Than Others
Four experiments examined Canadian 2- to 3-year-old children’s (N = 224; 104 girls, 120 boys) thoughts about shared preferences. Children saw sets of items, and identified theirs and another person’s preferences. Children expected that food preferences would be more likely to be shared than color preferences, regardless of whether the items were similar or different in appeal (Experiments 1–3). A final study replicated these findings while also e…
Disgust and Moral Judgment
We investigated the scope of the effect of disgust on moral judgments. In two field experiments (Experiment 1, N = 142, Experiment 2, N = 248), we manipulated whether participants were exposed to a disgusting odor. Participants then rated the permissibility of actions in two kinds of moral problems: dilemmas and transgressions. In both experiments, disgust did not affect moral judgments when we compared across exposure levels. However, self-repor…
Oh … so close! Children’s close counterfactual reasoning and emotion inferences
How we feel about an outcome often depends on how close an alternative outcome was to occurring. In four experiments, we investigated whether predominantly White, middle-class, Canadian children ( N = 425, Experiments 1-3) and American adults ( N = 227, Experiment 4) consider close counterfactual alternatives when inferring other people's emotions. In Experiment 1, 6-year-olds (but not 4- and 5-year-olds) inferred that an agent would feel sadder …
Butt-dialing the devil
Psychology (47 obras) · Social Psychology (44 obras) · Developmental psychology (31 obras) · Child and Animal Learning Development (28 obras) · Cognitive psychology (26 obras) · Social Psychology (25 obras) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (21 obras) · Computer Science (13 obras) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (13 obras) · Cognition (11 obras)