The emerging causal understanding of institutional objects

Institutional objects, such as money, drivers’ licenses, and borders, have functions because of their social roles rather than their immediate physical properties. These objects are causally different than standard artifacts (e.g. hammers, chairs, and cars), sharing more commonality with other socia...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition 2018-01, Vol.170, p.83-87
Main Authors: Noyes, Alexander, Keil, Frank C., Dunham, Yarrow
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Assimilation
Borders
Child
Child Development - physiology
Child, Preschool
Children
Children & youth
Cognitive development
Comprehension - physiology
Concept Formation - physiology
Concepts
Elementary schools
Female
Function
Humans
Knowledge
Male
Money
Physical properties
Psychological theories
Social reality
Social roles
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Summary:Institutional objects, such as money, drivers’ licenses, and borders, have functions because of their social roles rather than their immediate physical properties. These objects are causally different than standard artifacts (e.g. hammers, chairs, and cars), sharing more commonality with other social roles. Thus, they inform psychological theories of human-made objects as well as children’s emerging understanding of social reality. We examined whether children (N=180, ages 4–9) differentiate institutional objects from standard artifacts. Specifically, we examine whether children understand that mutual intentions (i.e., the intentions of a social collective) underlie the functional affordances of institutional objects in ways that they do not for standard artifacts. We find that young children assimilate institutional objects into their intuitive theories of standard artifacts; children begin to differentiate between the domains in the elementary school years.
ISSN:0010-0277
1873-7838
DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2017.09.008