Language and Cogntion Seminar - Essentialism and authenticity

Speaker: Dr Nathalia Gjersoe, Department of Psychology, University of Bath

Psychological essentialism is an intuitive bias to look beyond superficial features and infer a deeper, causal reality. Typically this is researched in the context of natural kinds but the same cognitive bias may also be at work in the way that we think about individual objects such as sentimental belongings, celebrity memorabilia and famous works of art. For all of these classes of objects we care very much about invisible properties such as authenticity and historical path. I present data from a series of studies exploring the developmental roots of our tendency to value authentic objects, how this differs cross-culturally in children and adults and how ideas of uniqueness interact with language and behaviour.

Time: 4pm, Tuesday 6 December

Venue: Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF