Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T01:07:26.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Does the concept of obligation develop from the inside-out or outside-in?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2020

Marjorie Rhodes*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY10003. [email protected]://kidconcepts.org

Abstract

Tomasello proposes that the concept of obligation develops “from the inside-out”: emerging first in experiences of shared agency and generalizing outward to shape children's broader understanding. Here I consider that obligation may also develop “from the outside-in,” emerging as a domain-specific instantiation of a more general conceptual bias to expect categories to prescribe how their members are supposed to behave.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Buttelmann, D. & Boehm, R. (2014) The ontogeny of the motivation that underlies in-group bias. Psychological Science 25(4):921–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chalik, L. & Rhodes, M. (2018) Learning about social category-based obligations. Cognitive Development 48:117–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.06.010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalik, L. & Rhodes, M. (forthcoming) Groups as moral boundaries: A developmental perspective. In: Advanced in child development and behavior, vol. 58, ed. Benson, J..Google Scholar
Diesendruck, G., Markson, L. & Bloom, P. (2003) Children's reliance on creator's intent in extending names for artifacts. Psychological Science 14(2):164–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.t01-1-01436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunham, Y. (2018) Mere membership. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 22(9):780–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.06.004.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunham, Y., Baron, A. S. & Carey, S. (2011) Consequences of “minimal” group affiliations in children. Child Development 82(3):793811. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01577.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foster-Hanson, E., Moty, K., Cardarelli, A., Ocampo, J. D. & Rhodes, M. (2019) Developmental changes in strategies for gathering evidence about biological kinds. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/gm96d.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster-Hanson, E. & Rhodes, M. (2019) Is the most representative skunk the average or the stinkiest? Developmental changes in representations of biological categories. Cognitive Psychology 110:115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2018.12.004.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foster-Hanson, E., Roberts, S. O., Gelman, S. A. & Rhodes, M. (2018) Categories convey normative information across domains. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/b37av.Google Scholar
Gopnik, A. & Wellman, H. M. (2012) Reconstructing constructivism: Causal models, Bayesian learning mechanisms, and the theory-theory. Psychological Bulletin 138(6):1085–108. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028044.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haward, P., Wagner, L., Carey, S. & Prasada, S. (2018) The development of principled connections and kind representations. Cognition 176:255–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.02.001.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rhodes, M. (2012) Naïve theories of social groups. Child Development 83(6):1900–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01835.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rhodes, M. & Chalik, L. (2013) Social categories as markers of intrinsic interpersonal obligations. Psychological Science 24(6):9991006. doi:10.1177/0956797612466267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, S. O., Gelman, S. A. & Ho, A. K. (2017) So it is, so it shall be: Group regularities license children's prescriptive judgments. Cognitive Science 41:576600. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ting, F., Dawkins, M. B., Stavans, M. & Baillargeon, R. (2019) Principles and concepts in early moral cognition. In: The social brain: A developmental perspective, ed. Decety, J.. MIT Press.Google Scholar