Same people, different group: Social structures are a central component of group concepts.

We examine whether people conceptualize organized groups as having at least two parts: In addition to members (e.g., Alice), they also have social structures (i.

A developmental investigation of group concepts in the context of social hierarchy: Can the powerful impose group membership?

Group membership is not always voluntary and can be imposed within a social context; moreover, those with power disproportionately shape group membership. We asked if children and adults view group membership as imposed by the powerful. We undertook four studies (465 children ages 4-9, 150 adults): Studies 1-2 used novel minimal groups; Study 3 used 'cool' and 'uncool'; Study 4 used novel ethnic groups.

Subjectivity and social constitution: Contrasting conceptions of institutions, artifacts, and animals.

We systematically compared beliefs about animal (e.g., ), artifactual (e.

Evidence for multiple sources of inductive potential: Occupations and their relations to social institutions.

Several current theories have essences as primary drivers of inductive potential: e.g., people infer dogs share properties because they share essences.

There is no privileged link between kinds and essences early in development.

According to the dominant view of category representation, people preferentially infer that kinds (richly structured categories) reflect essences. Generic language ("Boys like blue") often occupies the central role in accounts of the formation of essentialist interpretations-especially in the context of social categories. In a preregistered study ( = 240 American children, ages 4 to 9 y), we tested whether children assume essences in the presence of generic language or whether they flexibly assume diverse causal structures.

Groups as institutions: The use of constitutive rules to attribute group membership.

Across four experiments we tested children's (N = 229, aged 4-9) beliefs about what makes an individual a member of a group. One model (groups as institutions) predicts children believe groups are based on constitutive rules, i.e.

Collective recognition and function in concepts of institutional social groups.

We investigate ordinary concepts of institutional groups: stable, cooperative, and socially constructed entities like clubs, companies, and academic departments. We use a transformation paradigm to examine participants' causal beliefs about how groups exist and persist over time. We consider whether participants believe groups are grounded in collective recognition or function.

Dangerous and distinctive properties bias category judgments late in development.

When faced with entities with potentially ambiguous category membership, adult category judgments are strongly biased toward dangerous and distinctive properties. For example, a cyanide-water mixture is categorized as cyanide. We used a developmental approach to better understand this cross-domain effect, which we term the asymmetric categorization of mixtures (ACM).

Institutional actors: Children's emerging beliefs about the causal structure of social roles.

Institutions make new forms of acting possible: Signing executive orders, scoring goals, and officiating weddings are only possible because of the U.S. government, the rules of soccer, and the institution of marriage.

Generics designate kinds but not always essences.

People believe that some categories are kinds with reliable causal structure and high inductive potential (e.g., ).

Asymmetric Mixtures: Common Conceptual Priorities for Social and Chemical Kinds.

Hypodescent is the phenomenon of categorizing biracial individuals asymmetrically (e.g., viewing Black-White biracial individuals as Black instead of White).

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.

Mutual intentions as a causal framework for social groups.

Children's early emerging intuitive theories are specialized for different conceptual domains. Recently attention has turned to children's concepts of social groups, finding that children believe that many social groups mark uniquely social information such as allegiances and obligations. But another critical component of intuitive theories, the causal beliefs that underlie category membership, has received less attention.

Children Prefer Diverse Samples for Inductive Reasoning in the Social Domain.

Not all samples of evidence are equally conclusive: Diverse evidence is more representative than narrow evidence. Prior research showed that children did not use sample diversity in evidence selection tasks, indiscriminately choosing diverse or narrow sets (tiger-mouse; tiger-lion) to learn about animals. This failure is not due to a general deficit of inductive reasoning, but reflects children's belief about the category and property at test.