Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Prior research on biological concepts suggests that peopleunderestimate within-species variability and rejectmetamorphosis as a possible change for unfamiliar organisms.This may be due to psychological essentialism. This studyinvestigated whether manipulating perceptions of biologicalvariability (both within species and between species) led toincreases in endorsement of metamorphosis amongundergraduate students. We manipulated perceptions ofvariability by priming students before a lesson and byhighlighting variability in the diagrams used during the lesson.Priming led to more endorsement of metamorphosis, but onlyamong those with high prior knowledge. Our results suggestthat manipulating perceptions of variability is not only possiblebut might be beneficial for those who have strong priorknowledge about biology.