Social Science Bites

How much of our understanding of the world comes built-in? More than you’d expect. That’s the conclusion that Iris Berent, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and head of the Language and Mind Lab there, has come to after years of research. She notes that her students, for example, are “astonished” at how much of human behavior and reactions are innate. “They think this is really strange,” she tells interviewer David Edmonds in this Social Science Bites podcast. “They don't think that knowledge, beliefs, that all those epistemic states, could possibly be innate. It doesn't look like this is happening just because they reject innateness across the board.” This rejection – which affects not only students but the general public and sometimes even social and behavioral scientists -- does have collateral damage. So, too, is misinterpreting what the innateness of some human nature can mean. “[I]f you think that what's in the body is innate and immutable, then upon getting evidence that you