Developmental Continuity in Teleo-Functional Explanation: Reasoning about Nature Among Romanian Romani Adults

Abstract

Teleo-functional explanations account for objects in terms of purpose, helping us understand objects such as pencils (for writing) and body parts such as ears (for hearing). Western-educated adults restrict teleo-functional attributions to artifact, biological, and behavioral phenomena, considering such explanations less appropriate for nonliving natural entities. In contrast, children extend explanations of purpose to the nonliving natural domain. This cross-cultural study explores whether apparent restrictions in“promiscuous teleology” occur as a function of age and development, generally, or scientific literacy, more specifically. Using methodology from Kelemen (1999b), two groups of adult Romanian Roma from the same community selected explanations for properties of biological and nonbiological natural entities; one group had little or no science training, the other was formally schooled. Compared to their schooled peers and to Western-educated American adults, nonschooled Romani adults were more likely to endorse purpose-based explanations of nonbiological natural entities. Findings challenge assumptions of fundamental conceptual discontinuities between children and adults.

Notes

¹In the case of second graders, the preference for other serving teleo-functional explanations of biological properties was not quite above chance.

²An additional note about terminology: As noted previously the term “Gypsy” should be abandoned due to inaccuracy (based on a historical misconception of Egyptian orgins) and because of the label's pervasive associations with romantic, nomadic images (at best) or negative stereotypes (at worst). At present, however, there is little consensus on replacement nomenclature. In this paper, we follow one accepted convention of using “Roma” as a collective noun (i.e., the Roma), “Romani” as an adjective (e.g., Romani women), and “Rom” as a singular noun (i.e., a Rom).

³In Study 2 of Kelemen (1999b), each picture set involved two biological property questions rather than one in order to explore concerns about the content of social teleo-functional explanations originally presented in the biological property trials of Study 1 of that paper. The inclusion of the original Study 1 set plus a new Study 2 set allowed a comparison to be conducted that ultimately indicated that these concerns were unfounded (for discussion, see Kelemen, 1999b, pp. 1446, 1447). However, for consistency, as both sets of trials had been tested on American participants, they were also tested on Romani participants.

⁴The reason for comparing the two sets of biological trials was due to a methodological consideration associated with Study 2 of Kelemen (1999b). For each picture set, one biological trial came from Study 1 of Kelemen (1999b), offering social (other-serving) teleo-functional explanations that were also sometimes anthropomorphic, and the other biological trial for each set was designed for Study 2 and offered social explanations that were simply other-serving, never anthropomorphic. The paired-samples t-tests here explored whether anthropomorphism was a factor influencing participants' tendency to endorse teleo-functional explanations; it was not.

^aU.S. child and adult data are taken from Kelemen, 1999b

^bSignificance different from chance: ∗p < 0.05, two-tailed; ∼ p = 0.05, two-tailed; ∞ p < 0.05, one-tailed.