ERIC Number: EJ936929
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Sep
Pages: 5
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0033-2909
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Available Date: N/A
Some Thoughts on Essence Placeholders, Interactionism, and Heritability: Reply to Haslam (2011) and Turkheimer (2011)
Dar-Nimrod, Ilan; Heine, Steven J.
Psychological Bulletin, v137 n5 p829-833 Sep 2011
In the target article (Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011), we provided a social-cognitive framework which identified genetic essentialist biases and their implications. In their commentaries, Haslam (2011) and Turkheimer (2011) indicated their general agreement with this framework but highlighted some important points for consideration. Haslam suggested that neuroessentialism is a comparable kind of essentialist bias and identified similarities with the genetic essentialism framework. In response, we acknowledge similarities but also identify qualitative and quantitative differences between genetic essentialism and other kinds of essentialist biases. Turkheimer challenged us to extend our discussion to address the question of how "should" people respond to genetic etiological information, critiqued the use of heritability coefficients, and identified a new construct (1 - r[subscript MZ]), which may be termed a "free-will coefficient." In response, we emphasize the need to transform interactionist explanations from being empty platitudes to becoming the default conceptual framework; we wholeheartedly accept his critical view of heritability coefficient estimates (but acknowledge a more limited utility for them); and we are intrigued by his conceptual interest in identifying free-will coefficients yet warn against falling into pitfalls similar to those that were stumbled into in the past.
Descriptors: Student Attitudes, Genetics, Models, Heredity, Etiology, Effect Size, Meta Analysis, Comparative Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
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Language: English
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