ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, one of the most powerful themes in both cognitive science in general and cognitive development in particular has been the idea that intuitive theories are essential to understanding our mental lives (Carey, 1985; Gopnik & Wellman, 1994; Keil, 1989; Murphy & Medin, 1985). It has become commonplace to talk about adults, children, and sometimes even infants having naïve or intuitive theories about various facets of the world (Gelman & Koenig, 2003). The words “naive” and “intuitive” have somewhat varying senses but there are several features that tend to reappear in their use with theories. Usually these theories are not taught to their owners in any pedagogical manner; instead they are acquired through encounters with the world. The role of culture varies across accounts. Sometimes the child developing an intuitive theory seems to be presented as an intellectual hermit on an isolated desert island of themselves and the environment they are trying to explain or understand. Other times, culture is seen as biasing the child, or adult, towards one intuitive theory versus another even if it isn’t explicitly presenting the theory as such. For example, traditional rural dwellers in parts of Central America can develop quite different biological theories, such as taxonomic versus ecological ones, as a result of the culture in which they are embedded (Medin & Atran, 2004). The culture may not explicitly provide the theory as such, but nonetheless can convey a particular kind of causal schema as central to the study of living things.
