The Plausible Impossible: Chinese Adults Hold Graded Notions of Impossibility
Abstract Events that violate the laws of nature are, by definition, impossible, but recent research suggests that people view some violations as “more impossible” than others (Shtulman & Morgan, 2017). When evaluating the difficulty of magic spells, American adults are influenced by causal consi...
| VerfasserInnen: | ; |
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| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Lade...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Brill
2021
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| In: |
Journal of cognition and culture
Jahr: 2021, Band: 21, Heft: 1/2, Seiten: 76-93 |
| normierte Schlagwort(-folgen): | B
China
/ Erwachsener
/ Unmöglichkeit
/ Magie
/ Imagination
/ Beurteilung
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| RelBib Classification: | AB Religionsphilosophie; Religionskritik; Atheismus AG Religiöses Leben; materielle Religion AZ Neue Religionen KBM Asien ZD Psychologie |
| weitere Schlagwörter: | B
magical reasoning
B Imagination B intuitive theories B Causal reasoning |
| Online Zugang: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Zusammenfassung: | Abstract Events that violate the laws of nature are, by definition, impossible, but recent research suggests that people view some violations as “more impossible” than others (Shtulman & Morgan, 2017). When evaluating the difficulty of magic spells, American adults are influenced by causal considerations that should be irrelevant given the spell’s primary causal violation, judging, for instance, that it would be more difficult to levitate a bowling ball than a basketball even though weight should no longer be a consideration if contact is no longer necessary for support. In the present study, we sought to test the generalizability of these effects in a non-Western context – China – where magical events are represented differently in popular fiction and where reasoning styles are often more holistic than analytic. Across several studies, Chinese adults ( n = 466) showed the same tendency as American adults to honor implicit causal constraints when evaluating the plausibility of magical events. These findings suggest that graded notions of impossibility are shared across cultures, possibly because they are a byproduct of causal knowledge. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5373 |
| Enthält: | Enthalten in: Journal of cognition and culture
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685373-12340097 |