Teleological properties matter more in categorization

This repository contains the experiments, data, analyses, and figures for the paper "Teleological properties matter more for categorization," by David Rose, Siying Zhang and Tobias Gerstenberg.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Repository structure

Introduction

What kinds of properties matter most in categorization? Does it matter whether properties are attributed in generic (e.g., "Bees are striped'') or specific (e.g., "This bee is striped'') statements? Because a standard view about the role of generics in categorization is that we categorize things by considering their essential properties, and generics are the central vehicle by which beliefs about essences are transmitted, we focus on classic tests of essentialist thinking -- transformation, induction and offspring tasks -- to address what kinds of properties matter in categorization and whether it matters whether they feature in generic or specific statements. In Experiment 1, participants categorized properties as being either behavioral, biological, social, or teleological. In Experiment 2, we used the top four properties from each group to describe a generic noun or a specific individual. Transforming a teleological property had a stronger effect on categorization judgments compared to the other types of properties. Teleological properties also mattered more when categorizing novel creatures (Experiment 3) or offspring (Experiment 4). While for Experiments 2 and 3, it made no difference whether properties were attributed in generic or specific form, Experiment 4 showed stronger effects for generic statements. Overall, our findings suggest that teleological properties play a privileged role in how people categorize and essentialize, and that whether these properties are introduced in generic or specific form might matter less.

Repository structure

├── code
│   ├── R
│   │   ├── cache
│   ├── experiments
│   │   ├── experiment1
│   │   ├── experiment2
│   │   ├── experiment3
│   │   └── experiment4
│   └── python
├── data
│   ├── experiment1
│   ├── experiment2
│   ├── experiment3
│   └── experiment4
├── docs
│   ├── experiment2
│   ├── experiment3
│   ├── experiment4
└── figures
    ├── experiment1
    ├── experiment2
    ├── experiment3
    ├── experiment4

• code/ contains all the code for the experiments, analyzing data and generating figures.
  • experiments contains code for each experiment that was run. Pre-registrations for all experiments may be accessed via the Open Science Framework here
    • experiment1 (pre-registration) was run in psiturk
    • experiment2 (pre-registration), experiment3 (pre-registration) experiment4 (pre-registration)and were run in jsPsych. These are copied in docs below where they can be rendered in your browser.
  • python contains scripts that were used to get the probabilities of sentence completions for properties used in experiment 2.
  • R contains the analysis scripts that were used to analyze data and generate figures (view a rendered file here).
• data/ contains anonymized data from all experiments:
  • experiment1 contains experiment1.db which includes trial and demographic data.
  • experiment2 contains experiment2.csv which includes the trial data and experiment2_demographics.csv which includes demographic data. The remaining files are for getting the probabilities of sentence completions from large language models for the properties used in experiment 2.
  • experiment3 contains experiment3.csv which includes the trial data for experiment 3 while experiment3_demographics.csv contains the demographic data.
  • experiment4 contains experiment4.csv which includes the trial data for experiment 3 while experiment4_demographics.csv contains the demographic data.
• docs/ contains all the experiment code for experiment2, experiment3 and experiment4. You can preview the experiments below:
  • Experiment 2 - Generic condition, Specific condition
  • Experiment 3 - Generic condition, Specific condition
  • Experiment 4 - Generic condition, Specific condition
• figures/ contains all the figures from the paper (generated using the script in code/R/).

CRediT

Term	Definition	David Rose	Siying Zhang	Tobias Gerstenberg
Conceptualization	Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims	x	x	x
Methodology	Development or design of methodology; creation of models	x	x	x
Software	Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components	x	x	x
Validation	Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/ reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs	x		x
Formal analysis	Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data	x		x
Investigation	Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection	x	x
Data Curation	Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse	x	x
Writing - Original Draft	Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation)	x
Writing - Review & Editing	Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre-or postpublication stages	x	x	x
Visualization	Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/ data presentation	x
Supervision	Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team	x		x
Project administration	Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution	x		x
Funding acquisition	Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication			x