ERIC Number: EJ1159346
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Nov
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0364-0213
EISSN: N/A
Do Americans Have a Preference for Rule-Based Classification?
Murphy, Gregory L.; Bosch, David A.; Kim, ShinWoo
Cognitive Science, v41 n8 p2026-2052 Nov 2017
Six experiments investigated variables predicted to influence subjects' tendency to classify items by a single property ("rule-based" responding) instead of overall similarity, following the paradigm of Norenzayan et al. (2002, "Cognitive Science"), who found that European Americans tended to give more "logical" rule-based responses. However, in five experiments with Mechanical Turk subjects and undergraduates at an American university, we found a consistent preference for similarity-based responding. A sixth experiment with Korean undergraduates revealed an effect of instructions, also reported by Norenzayan et al., in which classification instructions led to majority rule-based responding but similarity instructions led to overall similarity grouping. Our American subjects showed no such difference and used similarity more overall. We conclude that Americans do not have a preference for rule responding in classification and discuss the differences between tasks that reliably show strong rule or unidimensional preferences (category construction and category learning) in contrast to this classification paradigm.
Descriptors: Preferences, Classification, Predictor Variables, Experiments, Whites, Logical Thinking, Undergraduate Students, Task Analysis, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United States; South Korea
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A