Editors:
Covers the impact of lay theories or mindsets on topics such as prejudice, creativity, self-regulation, health, free will, and religion
Includes preface written by prestigious psychological researcher, Dr. Carol Dweck
Provides an integrative perspective on the psychology of lay theories
Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
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Table of contents (15 chapters)
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Front Matter
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The Origins and Nature of Lay Theories
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Front Matter
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Explorations in Lay Theories About Human Psychological Attributes or Phenomena
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Front Matter
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Insights into Lay Theories About the Metaphysical or Supernatural
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Front Matter
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Investigation of Lay Theories About Mental and Physical Health
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Front Matter
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About this book
This timely and important collection broadens our understanding of the ways in which lay theories (also known as folk psychologies, implicit theories, naïve theories, or mindsets) impact our lives and social relations. Moving well beyond lay theories as applied to intelligence and achievement, this volume considers lay theories in an admirably wide context, including perspectives on prejudice, creativity, self-regulation, health, free will, justice, magic, religion and more. Eminent and emerging scholars alike provide a comprehensive overview that presents and synthesizes cutting edge contemporary research on lay theories, spanning social, cognitive, developmental, cultural, and clinical psychology.
Structurally, this volume is organized in three parts. Beginning with a preface by renowned scholar Carol Dweck, the first part looks at the origins and nature of lay theories, and how malleable they are. The second part explores lay theories about common psychological phenomena. The third section discusses lay theories about the metaphysical or supernatural. Finally, the last section explores the important question of how lay theories impact health and health behavior. Taken together, the chapters provide an integrative survey of the science of lay theories, bringing together many perspectives that previously have been studied largely in isolation. This volume is more than the sum of its parts—perspectives from different strands of research provide insights that cut across research disciplines, making novel connections and prompting new directions for this field of study. Shedding light on how our beliefs shape all facets of our lives, The Science of Lay Theories: How Beliefs Shape Our Cognition, Behavior, and Health will appeal to researchers and practitioners in psychology, as well as philosophers, cognitive and developmental neuroscientists, religious scholars, sociologists, and anthropologists.
It is very rare to say of an edited volume of scholarly chapters “I couldn’t put it down!” Yet that was the case with this book. It’s not just that I have worked in this field for many years, but rather, with every chapter I felt I was gaining new insights into what, deep down, people really believe and how these beliefs influence their lives—Carol Dweck, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USAKeywords
- implicit theories
- folk psychology
- lay beliefs about creativity
- mindsets
- metacognition
- mind wandering and lay theory
- nature of willpower
- ego depletion
- weight-based mindsets
- unconscious bias
- experimental philosophy
- mindsets about intelligence
- mindsets about intergroup relations
- justice motive
- naive theories
- allure of neuroscience
- belief in free will
- belief in God
- anthropology of religion
- belief in magic
Editors and Affiliations
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Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, USA
Claire M. Zedelius, Jonathan W. Schooler
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Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Barbara C. N. Müller
About the editors
Dr. Claire Zedelius is working as a postdoctoral researcher in Jonathan Schooler’s META (Memory, Emotion, Thought, Awareness) lab. One of her research lines examines the effects of mind wandering or daydreaming on different aspects of creativity. Another line of her research focuses on the roles of meta-awareness and meta-cognitive beliefs in mind wandering. Claire did her dissertation research at the social psychology department at Utrecht University (the Netherlands), where she worked with Henk Aarts studying conscious and unconscious processes in human reward pursuit.
Dr. Barbara Müller is an Assistant Professor at the Communication Science department of the Behavioural Science Institute at Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In her work, she investigates the developmental and neurocognitive mechanisms of human/robot interactions, and how these interactions can be improved. Her second line of research focuses on social influence in health communication. She is particularly interested in how people can convince themselves to adopt a healthy lifestyle, instead of being convinced by someone else. Barbara did her dissertation research at Radboud University, where she worked with Rick van Baaren and Ap Dijksterhuis on action co-representation of non-biological actions.
Dr. Jonathan Schooler is a Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara. He oversees the META lab and is the Director of UCSB’s Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential. Jonathan pursues research on consciousness, memory, the relationship between language and thought, problem-solving, and decision-making. He is particularly interested in exploring phenomena that intersect between the empirical and the philosophical such as how fluctuations in people’s awareness of their experience mediate mind-wandering and how people’s theories about the mind influence how they behave.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Science of Lay Theories
Book Subtitle: How Beliefs Shape Our Cognition, Behavior, and Health
Editors: Claire M. Zedelius, Barbara C. N. Müller, Jonathan W. Schooler
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57306-9
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and Psychology, Behavioral Science and Psychology (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-57305-2Published: 24 July 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-86128-9Published: 13 May 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-57306-9Published: 14 July 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 382
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations
Topics: Personality and Social Psychology, Religion and Psychology, Health Psychology