The Science of Lay Theories

Preface: Lay theories beyond intelligence, a bigger picture perspective by Carol Dweck

Table of Contents

Part I: The origins and nature of lay theories

Chapter 1. The Origins of Lay Theories: The Case of Essentialist Beliefs

by Nick Haslam

 

Chapter 2. The Motivated Fluidity of Lay Theories of Change

by Anne E. Wilson and Jaslyn A. English

 

Part II: Explorations in lay theories about human psychological attributes or phenomena

Chapter 3. Lay Theories of Self-Control

                by Veronika Job and Gregory M. Walton

 

Chapter 4. What are People's Lay Theories about Mind Wandering and How do Those Beliefs Affect Them?

                by Claire M. Zedelius and Jonathan W. Schooler

 

Chapter 5. Lay Theories of Creativity

                by Simone Ritter, and Eric Rietzschel 



Chapter 6. Mindsets about Malleability and Intergroup Relations

                by Aneeta Rattan, and Oriane Georgeac

 

Chapter 7. Effects of Lay Beliefs on the Justice Motive

                by Michèlle Bal, and Kees van den Bos

Part III: Insights into  lay theories about the metaphysical or supernatural

 Chapter 8. Antecedents, Manifestations, and Consequences of Belief in Mind-Body Dualism

Dr. Claire Zedelius is working as a postdoctoral researcher in Jonathan Schooler's META (Memory, Emotion, Thought, Awareness) lab. One of her research lines examines the effects of mind wandering or daydreaming on different aspects of creativity. Another line of her research focuses on the roles of meta-awareness and meta-cognitive beliefs in mind wandering. Claire did her dissertation research at the social psychology department at Utrecht University (the Netherlands), where she worked with Henk Aarts studying conscious and unconscious processes in human reward pursuit.



Dr. Barbara Müller is an Assistant Professor at the Communication Science department of the Behavioural Science Institute at Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In her work, she investigates the developmental and neurocognitive mechanisms of human/robot interactions, and how these interactions can be improved. Her second line of research focuses on social influence in health communication. She is particularly interested in how people can convince themselves to adopt a healthy lifestyle, instead of being convinced by someone else. Barbara did her dissertation research at Radboud University, where she worked with Rick van Baaren and Ap Dijksterhuis on action co-representation of non-biological actions.



Dr. Jonathan Schooler is a Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara. He oversees the META lab and is the Director of UCSB's Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential. Jonathan pursues research on consciousness, memory, the relationship between language and thought, problem-solving, and decision-making. He is particularly interested in exploring phenomena that intersect between the empirical and the philosophical such as how fluctuations in people's awareness of their experience mediate mind-wandering and how people's theories about the mind influence how they behave.