Essay Example on Children's Essentialism: Beliefs on Psychological Traits

The article analyzes past works with regards to children’s views on group membership and psychological traits. From this, it is established that such is based on essentialism. These variables are establishing to be biological and showing a sense of normalcy over time. It is considering the existence of two hypotheses on how related beliefs are set on a child while growing up. The main objective is to establish the most legitimate claim on the biological concepts of psychological beliefs.

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The first hypothesis argues that beliefs lack any sense of essentialism. The other contradicts this with the statement of how these beliefs can be inherited by children. Such is an exact relation to essentialism. The article studies on the types of beliefs on children between the ages of 8 and 10 (Heiphetz et al., 2017). There is the inclusion of some adults. The psychological study aimed at establishing how these beliefs are relayed overtime. If it is a biological concept and if there are any changes as one grows up.

The methodology is based on the understanding of the perspective that children develop with regards to beliefs. Adults within the same paradigm were reporting certain variabilities concerning similar studied concepts (Heiphetz et al., 2017). It is by manipulating the objective of the study from that of previous works that focused more on the relationship of individual attributes to the various established categories. The current research now focuses on how these beliefs vary through the established human categories. It provides the opportunity to develop a better understanding of whether these beliefs would be reflected in a person’s attributes.

The article identifies that beliefs are more routine and not transferable via genes (Heiphetz et al., 2017). The establishment that as one grows up, these beliefs tend to change. Such is based on several factors. It is with the example of how the environment and people one lives around could impact on the same. There are deductions on the possible reasons for children developing essentials senses to these beliefs.

The perception that most of these are situated in the brain. It is from the knowledge of the role that the brain plays to one’s understanding of the various concepts and principles of life—the other perception of how these beliefs should be relayed from parents to their children (Kim et al., 2016). The final aspect being that a person has the capabilities of deciding what it is they want to believe. There is established the relevance of studying beliefs relative to essentialism unlike previous studies that were based on time and probability.

My opinion on this research is that it provides a more detailed understanding of psychology based on biology. It is considering the argument on how beliefs are relayed from one generation to the next. The study helps in identifying the significant factors that affect the transfer of such concepts. The work should be repeated with a couple of adjustments.

Conclusion

The aim is to improve the legitimacy of arguments on essentialism and the psychology of beliefs. An improvement of this may be the involvement of the children’s parents. Such offers better deductions on the influence that they have had on their children about these beliefs. The implication of this study satisfies the concepts of biology that are related to psychology, how our brains integrate the various behavioral instances. It is considering how the interaction of various aspects of life directly impacts on a person’s psychology (Kim et al., 2016).

Reference

Heiphetz, L., Gelman, S.A., Young, L.L. (2017). The perceived stability and biological basis of religious beliefs, factual beliefs, and opinions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 156, 82-98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.11.015

Kim, N.S., Ahn, W.K., Johnson, S.G.B., Knobe, J. (2016). The influence of framing on clinicians’ judgments of the biological basis of behaviors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22(1), 39–47. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000070