An exploratory mindset reduces preference for prototypes and increases preference for novel exemplars

Abstract

Previous research has shown that prototypes of familiar categories are preferred over novel exemplars of familiar and unfamiliar categories. The present research demonstrates a reversal of this effect by simply inducing an exploratory mindset. Specifically, participants were asked to judge the attractiveness of dot patterns that represented prototypes of familiar categories, exemplars of familiar categories, or exemplars of novel categories. An exploratory mindset was manipulated by asking participants to imagine the stimuli as stars (versus as peas). Results show that participants in the exploration condition preferred exemplars of novel categories (thereby reversing the classical prototypicality effect), whereas participants in the control condition preferred prototypes. The role of mindsets and familiarity in attractiveness ratings is discussed.

Keywords:

• Prototypes
• Novelty
• Mindset
• Exploration
• Preference

Acknowledgements

Both authors contributed equally to this research. The research was supported by a grant (#PA00P1_124124/1) from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) awarded to JH, and it was partially funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Str 264/25–1).

We thank Christina Falcon and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

¹The authors thank Piotr Winkielman and colleagues for providing us with their experimental materials.

²Note that the presentation of novel category prototypes would be redundant in this setup, since they would simply be stimuli of novel categories (such as the exemplars of novel categories). Without any previous exposure, a single exemplar and a single prototype of an otherwise novel category exhibit no informational difference.