Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Social Proof00:52

Social Proof

Social proof is a form of persuasion based on comparison and conformity. People compare their behavior and actions to what others are doing and will change to conform to do what their peers do.
Theory of Attribution II: Kelley's Covariation Theory01:29

Theory of Attribution II: Kelley's Covariation Theory

Attribution theory plays a crucial role in social psychology, helping to explain how individuals interpret the causes of behavior. One prominent model within this field is Harold Kelley's covariation theory, which provides a systematic approach to determining whether internal traits or external circumstances drive a person's actions. The model posits that individuals rely on three key types of information—consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness—to make these judgments.Consensus: Comparing...
Self-Discrepancy Theory02:45

Self-Discrepancy Theory

One influential perspective on what motivates people's behavior is detailed in Tory Higgin's self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987). He proposed that people hold disagreeing internal representations of themselves that lead to different emotional states.
Confirmation Biases01:31

Confirmation Biases

The confirmation bias is the tendency to focus on information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignore information that is inconsistent with our expectations. For example, if you think that your professor is not very nice, you notice all of the instances of rude behavior exhibited by the professor while ignoring the countless pleasant interactions he is involved in on a daily basis. Have you ever fallen prey to the confirmation bias, either as the source or target of such bias?
Implicit Personality Theories01:23

Implicit Personality Theories

Implicit personality theory explains how individuals make assumptions about the relationships between personality traits, behaviors, and character types. When people learn that someone possesses a particular trait, they tend to infer the presence of other related characteristics, forming a cohesive impression. This cognitive shortcut plays a crucial role in social interactions and interpersonal judgments.Central Traits and Their InfluenceSolomon Asch's seminal 1946 study highlighted the power...
Theory of Attribution I: Correspondent Inference Theory01:15

Theory of Attribution I: Correspondent Inference Theory

Correspondent inference theory, proposed by Jones and Davis in 1965, seeks to explain how individuals infer stable personality traits from observed behaviors. It suggests that people attribute actions to underlying dispositions rather than external circumstances, particularly when the behavior appears intentional and socially significant.Voluntary Behavior and Dispositional AttributionAccording to this theory, individuals are more likely to attribute behavior to personal traits when it appears...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Examining the efficacy of a common response to stereotypical generics.

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2026
Same author

Beyond What Is Said: Generic Language in Parent-Child Conversations and Children's Racial Bias.

Developmental science·2026
Same author

Hidden processes of workflow in cognitive developmental psychology.

Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences·2026
Same author

Who should do and who chooses to do service: Girls' and boys' developing service-related beliefs and behaviors.

Child development·2026
Same author

What we owe to ourselves: Investigating people's sense of obligations to the self.

Journal of personality and social psychology·2025
Same author

Generic references to gender predict essentialism and stereotyping even when they express counter-stereotypic ideas.

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2025
Same journal

Reciprocal relations between parent-adolescent closeness and adolescent depressive symptoms across the pre-to-post COVID-19 pandemic.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Young children use conversational timing as a cue for prosocial commitment.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Timing and type of domestic violence exposure and adolescents' experiences of peer violence.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Comprehension of "can" predicts performance on a nonverbal measure of modal concepts at 48 but not 36 months.

Child development·2026
Same journal

An associative learning account of how saliva becomes a cue for comfort.

Child development·2026
Same journal

If moms do it, it can't be that important: Children's reasoning about gender disparities in domestic work.

Child development·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 29, 2026

Applying an eMASS Customization Program as a Research Tool to Evaluate Consumer Benefits
08:27

Applying an eMASS Customization Program as a Research Tool to Evaluate Consumer Benefits

Published on: September 27, 2019

Categories influence predictions about individual consistency.

Marjorie Rhodes1, Susan A Gelman

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043, USA. rhodesma@umich.edu

Child Development
|October 2, 2008
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Young children use social categories to predict behavior consistency. They expect traits to align with group properties, not individual variations, influencing their social cognition development.

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 29, 2026

Applying an eMASS Customization Program as a Research Tool to Evaluate Consumer Benefits
08:27

Applying an eMASS Customization Program as a Research Tool to Evaluate Consumer Benefits

Published on: September 27, 2019

Area of Science:

  • Social Cognitive Development
  • Developmental Psychology

Background:

  • Predicting future behavior is a key social-cognitive skill.
  • Children's understanding of social groups and individual consistency develops over time.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how young children use category information to form expectations about individual behavioral consistency.
  • To examine the developmental course of these predictive abilities.

Main Methods:

  • Four studies were conducted with 150 participants, ranging from preschool to adult ages.
  • Children aged 4-5 were presented with examples of properties distributed within categories (e.g., gender) and within individuals.
  • Participants predicted the consistency of psychological properties (preferences, fears) over time based on these examples.

Main Results:

  • Children predicted consistent psychological properties over time when examples followed category-linked distributions (e.g., gender differences).
  • They did not predict consistency when properties varied within a category.
  • Developmental trends in these expectations were analyzed.

Conclusions:

  • Children's theories of behavior and social groups interact to shape their social world expectations.
  • Category information significantly influences young children's predictions of individual consistency.
  • Understanding this interplay is crucial for comprehending social cognition development.