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Abstract
Previous research indicates that the ontological status that adults attribute to categories
varies systematically by domain. For example, adults view distinctions between different
animal species as natural and objective, but view distinctions between different kinds
of furniture as more conventionalized and subjective. The present work (N=435; ages
5-18) examined the effects of domain, age, and cultural context on beliefs about the
naturalness vs. conventionality of categories. Results demonstrate that young children,
like adults, view animal categories as natural kinds, but artifact categories as more
conventionalized. For human social categories (gender and race), beliefs about naturalness
and conventionality were predicted by interactions between cultural context and age.
Implications for the origins of social categories and theories of conceptual development
will be discussed.