Web Analytics
top of page

2024 & in press

[pdf] Donovan, B. M., Syed, A., Arnold, S. H., Lee, D., Weindling, M., Stuhlsatz, M. A. M., Riegle-Crumb, C., & Cimpian, A. (2024). Sex and gender essentialism in textbooks. Science, 383(6685), 822–825. 

[pdf] Muradoglu, M., Porter, T., Trzesniewski, K., & Cimpian, A. (2024). A growth mindset scale for young children (GM-C): Development and validation among children from the United States and South Africa. PLOS ONE, 19(10), e0311205

[pdf] Porter, T., Leary, M. R., & Cimpian, A. (in press). Teachers’ intellectual humility benefits adolescents’ interest and learning. Developmental Psychology. 

[pdf] Stanaland, A., Gaither, S., Gassman-Pines, A., Galvez-Cepeda, D., & Cimpian, A. (in press). Adolescent boys’ aggressive responses to perceived threats to their gender typicality. Developmental Science

[pdf] Christy, A. G., Maffly-Kipp, J., Friedman, M., Cimpian, A., & Schlegel, R. J. (2024). Essentialist beliefs about the self predict psychological wellbeing. Self and Identity, 23(12), 127174

[pdf] MacDonald, C., Oh, D., Barger, M. M., Cimpian, A., & Pomerantz, E. M. (in press). Does inducing growth-oriented mindsets about math ability in parents enhance children’s math mindsets, affect, and achievement? Developmental Psychology.

[pdf] Verniers, C., Aelenei, C., Breda, T., Cimpian, J. R., Girerd, L., Molina, E., Sovet, L., & Cimpian, A. (in press). The double-edged sword of role models: A systematic narrative review of the unintended effects of role model interventions on support for the status quo. Review of Research in Education.

2020

[pdf] Siddiqui, H., Cimpian, A., & Rutherford, M. D. (2020). Canadian children’s concepts of national groups: A comparison with children from the United States. Developmental Psychology, 56(11), 2102–2109  

 

[pdf] Storage, D., Charlesworth, T. E. S., Banaji, M. R., & Cimpian, A. (2020). Adults and children implicitly associate brilliance with men more than women. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 90, 104020.   

 

[pdf] Muradoglu, M., & Cimpian, A. (2020). Children’s intuitive theories of academic performance. Child Development, 91(4), e902e918. 

 

[pdf] Vial, A. C., & Cimpian, A. (2020). Evaluative feedback expresses and reinforces cultural stereotypes. In E. Brummelman (Ed.), Psychological Perspectives on Praise (pp. 119128). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

[pdf] *Landy, J. F., *Jia, M., *Ding, I. L., *Viganola, D., Tierney, W., ... Cimpian, A., ... *Uhlmann, E. L. (2020). Crowdsourcing hypothesis tests: Making transparent how design choices shape research results. Psychological Bulletin, 146(5), 451–479. 

 

[pdf] Foster-Hanson, E., Cimpian, A., Leshin, R. A., & Rhodes, M. (2020). Asking children to “be helpers” can backfire after setbacks. Child Development, 91(1), 236–248. 

 

[pdf] Heyder, A., Weidinger, A. F., Cimpian, A., & Steinmayr, R. (2020). Teachers’ belief that math requires innate ability predicts lower intrinsic motivation among low-achieving students. Learning and Instruction, 65, 101220. 

 

2019

[pdf] *Jaxon, J., *Lei, R. F., Shachnai, R., Chestnut, E. K., & Cimpian, A. (2019). The acquisition of gender stereotypes about intellectual ability: Intersections with race. Journal of Social Issues, 75(4), 1192–2015. 

 

[pdf] Horne, Z., & Cimpian, A. (2019). Intuitions about personal identity are rooted in essentialist thinking across development. Cognition, 191, 103981. 

 

[pdf] Christy, A. G., Schlegel, R. J., & Cimpian, A. (2019). Why do people believe in a “true self”? The role of essentialist reasoning about personal identity and the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(2), 386–416. 

 

[pdf] Hussak, L. J., & Cimpian, A. (2019). “It feels like it’s in your body”: How children in the United States think about nationality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(7), 1153–1168. 

 

[pdf] *Horne, Z., *Muradoglu, M., & Cimpian, A. (2019). Explanation as a cognitive process. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(3), 187199. 

 

  • Notes: The authors marked with an asterisk contributed equally to the work. 

[pdf] Sutherland, S. L., & Cimpian, A. (2019). Developmental evidence for a link between the inherence bias in explanation and psychological essentialism. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 177, 265281. 

 

2018

[pdf] Bian, L., Leslie, S. J., & Cimpian, A. (2018). Evidence of bias against girls and women in contexts that emphasize intellectual ability. American Psychologist, 73(9), 11391153. 

 

[pdf] Boston, J. S., & Cimpian, A. (2018). How do we encourage gifted girls to pursue and succeed in science and engineering? Gifted Child Today, 41(4), 196–207

 

[pdf] Gelman, S. A., Cimpian, A., & Roberts, S. O. (2018). How deep do we dig? Formal explanations as placeholders for inherent explanations. Cognitive Psychology, 106, 4359. 

 

[pdf] Chestnut, E. K., Lei, R. F., Leslie, S. J., & Cimpian, A. (2018). The myth that only brilliant people are good at math and its implications for diversity. Education Sciences, 8(2), 65. 

 

[pdf] Bian, L., Leslie, S. J., Murphy, M. C., & Cimpian, A. (2018). Messages about brilliance undermine women’s interest in educational and professional opportunities. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 404420. 

 

[pdf] Horne, Z., & Cimpian, A. (2018). Subtle syntactic cues affect intuitions about knowledge: Methodological and theoretical implications. In T. Lombrozo, J. Knobe, & S. Nichols (Eds.), Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (pp. 737). New York: Oxford University Press.

[pdf] Hussak, L. J., & Cimpian, A. (2018). Investigating the origins of political views: Biases in explanation predict conservative attitudes in children and adults. Developmental Science, 21, e12567. 

 

[pdf] Cimpian, A., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Oettingen, G. (2018). Intuition. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development (pp. 12191220). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[pdf] Hussak, L. J., & Cimpian, A. (2018). Memory accessibility shapes explanation: Testing key claims of the inherence heuristic account. Memory & Cognition, 46(1), 68–88

 

[pdf] Rhodes, M., Leslie, S. J., Saunders, K., Dunham, Y., & Cimpian, A. (2018). How does social essentialism affect the development of inter-group relations? Developmental Science, 21, e12509.

2017

[pdf] Cimpian, A., Hammond, M. D., Mazza, G., & Corry, G. (2017). Young children’s self-concepts include representations of abstract traits and the global self. Child Development, 88(6), 17861798. 

 

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Leslie, S. J. (2017). The brilliance trap: How a misplaced emphasis on genius subtly discourages women and African-Americans from certain academic fields. Scientific American, 317, 6065.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Keil, F. C. (2017). Preface for the special issue on the Process of Explanation. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(5), 13611363. 

 

[pdf] Tasimi, A., Gelman, S. A., Cimpian, A., & Knobe, J. (2017). Differences in the evaluation of generic statements about human and non-human categories. Cognitive Science, 41(7), 19341957.

[pdf] Hammond, M. D., & Cimpian, A. (2017). Investigating the cognitive structure of stereotypes: Generic beliefs about groups predict social judgments better than statistical beliefs. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(5), 607–614

 

[pdf] Bian, L., Leslie, S. J., & Cimpian, A. (2017). Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability emerge early and influence children’s interests. Science, 355(6323), 389391. 

 

[pdf] Cimpian, A. (2017). Early reasoning about competence is not irrationally optimistic, nor does it stem from inadequate cognitive representations. In A. J. Elliot, C. S. Dweck, & D. S. Yeager (Eds.), Handbook of Competence and Motivation (2nd Edition): Theory and Application (pp. 387–407). New York: Guilford Press.

 

[pdf] Bian, L., & Cimpian, A. (2017). Are stereotypes accurate? A perspective from the cognitive science of concepts. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40, e3. [commentary]

  

[pdf] Sutherland, S. L., & Cimpian, A. (2017). Inductive generalization relies on category representations. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(2), 632–636.

2016

[pdf] Tworek, C. M., & Cimpian, A. (2016). Why do people tend to infer ought from is? The role of biases in explanation. Psychological Science, 27(8), 1109–1122.

 

[pdf] *Schweinsberg, M., *Madan, N., ... Cimpian, A., ... & *Uhlmann, E. L. (2016). The pipeline project: Pre-publication independent replications of a single laboratory’s research pipeline. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 66, 55–67.  

 

  • Notes: The authors marked with an asterisk contributed equally to the work. In total, there are 82 authors.

  • Resources: Supplementary Materials

[pdf] Qu, Y., Pomerantz, E. M., Wang, M., Cheung, C., & Cimpian, A. (2016). Conceptions of adolescence: Implications for differences in engagement in school over early adolescence in the United States and China. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45(7), 1512–1526.

[pdf] Cimpian, A. (2016). The privileged status of category representations in early development. Child Development Perspectives, 10(2), 99–104.

[pdf] Storage, D., Horne, Z., Cimpian, A., & Leslie, S. J. (2016). The frequency of “brilliant” and “genius” in teaching evaluations predicts the representation of women and African Americans across fields. PLOS ONE, 11(3), e0150194.

   

  • Notes: Top 1% most downloaded of all PLOS ONE articles published in 2016.

2015

[pdf] Hussak, L. J., & Cimpian, A. (2015). An early-emerging explanatory heuristic promotes support for the status quo. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(5), 739–752. 

 

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Leslie, S. J. (2015). Response to comment on “Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines.” Science, 349(6246), 391.

[pdf] Sutherland, S. L., & Cimpian, A. (2015). Children show heightened knew-it-all-along errors when learning new facts about kinds: Evidence for the power of kind representations in children’s thinking. Developmental Psychology, 51(8), 1115–1130.

 

[pdf] Sutherland, S. L., & Cimpian, A. (2015). An explanatory heuristic gives rise to the belief that words are well suited for their referents. Cognition, 143, 228–240.

 

[pdf] Sutherland, S. L., Cimpian, A., Leslie, S. J., & Gelman, S. A. (2015). Memory errors reveal a bias to spontaneously generalize to categories. Cognitive Science, 39(5), 1021–1046.

[pdf] Cimpian, A. (2015). The inherence heuristic: Generating everyday explanations. In R. Scott & S. Kosslyn (Eds.), Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (pp. 1–15). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

[pdf] Meyer, M., Cimpian, A., & Leslie, S. J. (2015). Women are underrepresented in fields where success is believed to require brilliance. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 235. 

 

[pdf] *Leslie, S. J., *Cimpian, A., Meyer, M., & Freeland, E. (2015). Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines. Science, 347(6219), 262–265. 

 

2014

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Salomon, E. (2014). The inherence heuristic: An intuitive means of making sense of the world, and a potential precursor to psychological essentialism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37(5), 461–480. [target article]

 

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Salomon, E. (2014). Refining and expanding the proposal of an inherence heuristic in human understanding. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37(5), 506–527. [response to commentaries]

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Steinberg, O. D. (2014). The inherence heuristic across development: Systematic differences between children’s and adults’ explanations for everyday facts. Cognitive Psychology, 75, 130–154.

[pdf] Salomon, E., & Cimpian, A. (2014). The inherence heuristic as a source of essentialist thought. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(10), 1297–1315.

 

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Petro, G. (2014). Building theory-based concepts: Four-year-olds preferentially seek explanations for features of kinds. Cognition, 131(2), 300–310.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Park, J. J. (2014). Tell me about pangolins! Evidence that children are motivated to learn about kinds. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(1), 46–55. 

 

2012 & 2013

[pdf] Cimpian, A. (2013). Generic statements, causal attributions, and children’s naive theories. In M. R. Banaji & S. A. Gelman (Eds.), Navigating the Social World: What infants, children, and other species can teach us (pp. 269–274). New York: Oxford University Press.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., Mu, Y., & Erickson, L. C. (2012). Who is good at this game? Linking an activity to a social category undermines children’s achievement. Psychological Science, 23(5), 533–541. 

 

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Scott, R. M. (2012). Children expect generic knowledge to be widely shared. Cognition, 123(3), 419–433.

[pdf] Brandone, A. C., Cimpian, A., Leslie, S. J., & Gelman, S. A. (2012). Do lions have manes? For children, generics are about kinds rather than quantities. Child Development, 83(2), 423–433.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Erickson, L. C. (2012). Remembering kinds: New evidence that categories are privileged in children’s thinking. Cognitive Psychology, 64(3), 161–185.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Erickson, L. C. (2012). The effect of generic statements on children’s causal attributions: Questions of mechanism. Developmental Psychology, 48(1), 159–170.

2010 & 2011

[pdf] Cimpian, A., Meltzer, T. J., & Markman, E. M. (2011). Preschoolers’ use of morphosyntactic cues to identify generic sentences: Indefinite singular noun phrases, tense, and aspect. Child Development, 82(5), 1561–1578.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Markman, E. M. (2011). The generic/nongeneric distinction influences how children interpret new information about social others. Child Development, 82(2), 471–492.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., Brandone, A. C., & Gelman, S. A. (2010). Generic statements require little evidence for acceptance but have powerful implications. Cognitive Science, 34(8), 1452–1482. 

 

[pdf] Cimpian, A. (2010). The impact of generic language about ability on children’s achievement motivation. Developmental Psychology, 46(5), 1333–1340.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Cadena, C. (2010). Why are dunkels sticky? Preschoolers infer functionality and intentional creation for artifact properties learned from generic language. Cognition, 117(1), 62–68.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., Gelman, S. A., & Brandone, A. C. (2010). Theory-based considerations influence the interpretation of generic sentences. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25(2), 261–276.

2005–2009

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Markman, E. M. (2009). Information learned from generic language becomes central to children’s biological concepts: Evidence from their open-ended explanations. Cognition, 113(1), 14–25.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Markman, E. M. (2008). Preschool children’s use of cues to generic meaning. Cognition, 107(1), 19–53.

[pdf] Cimpian, A., Arce, H. C., Markman, E. M., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Subtle linguistic cues affect children’s motivation. Psychological Science, 18(4), 314–316. 

 

[pdf] Cimpian, A., & Markman, E. M. (2005). The absence of a shape bias in childrens word learning. Developmental Psychology, 41(6), 1003–1019.

[pdf] Bailey, A. H., Dembroff, R., Wodak, D., Ikizer, E. G., & Cimpian, A. (2024). People’s beliefs about pronouns reflect both the language they speak and their ideologies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(5), 1388–1406.

[pdf] Bailey, A. H., Williams, A., Poddar, A., & Cimpian, A. (in press). Intersectional male-centric and White-centric biases in collective concepts. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

[pdf] Goudeau, S., Stephens, N. M., Markus, H. R., Darnon, C., Croizet, J.-C., & Cimpian, A. (in press). What causes social class disparities in education? The role of the mismatches between academic contexts and working-class socialization contexts and how the effects of these mismatches are explained. Psychological Review.

[pdf] Renoux, M., Goudeau, S., Alexopoulos, T., Bouquet, C. A., & Cimpian, A. (2024). The inherence bias in preschoolers’ explanations for achievement differences: Replication and extension. npj Science of Learning, 9, 10.

[pdf] Muradoglu, M., Arnold, S. H., Poddar, A., Stanaland, A., Yilmaz, D., & Cimpian, A. (2024). Why a culture of brilliance is bad for physics. Nature Reviews Physics, 6, 75–77.

[pdf] Vial, A. C., & Cimpian, A. (2024). Gender differences in children’s reasoning about and motivation to pursue leadership roles. Sex Roles, 90, 4265. 

[pdf] Arnold, S. H., Bailey, A. H., Ma, W. J., Shahade, J., & Cimpian, A. (2024). Checking gender bias: Parents and mentors perceive less chess potential in girls. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(1), 114. 

[pdf] Gladstone, J. R., Tallberg, M., Jaxon, J., & Cimpian, A. (2024). What makes a role model motivating for young girls? The effects of the role model’s growth versus fixed mindsets about ability and interest. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 238, 105775. 

[pdf] Jenifer, J. B., Jaxon, J., Levine, S. C., & Cimpian, A. (2024). “You need to be super smart to do well in math!” Young children’s field-specific ability beliefs. Developmental Science, 27, e13429.

 

2023

[pdf] Goudeau, S., Sanrey, C., Autin, F., Stephens, N. M., Markus, H. R., Croizet, J.-C., & Cimpian, A. (2023). Unequal opportunities from the start: Socioeconomic disparities in classroom participation in preschool. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(11), 3135–3152.

 

[pdf] Muradoglu, M., Arnold, S. H., Leslie, S. J., & Cimpian, A. (2023). What does it take to succeed here? The belief that success requires brilliance is an obstacle to diversity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32(5), 379–386.  

[pdf] Hannak, A., Joseph, K., Larremore, D. B., & Cimpian, A. (2023). Field-specific ability beliefs as an explanation for gender differences in academics’ career trajectories: Evidence from public profiles on ORCID.org. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 125(4), 681–698.

[pdf] Carroll, J. M., Yeager, D. S., Buontempo, J., Hecht, C., Cimpian, A., Mhatre, P., Muller, C., & Crosnoe, R. (2023). Mindset × context: Schools, classrooms, and the unequal translation of expectations into math achievement. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 88(2), 7109.

 

[pdf] Muradoglu, M., Cimpian, J. R., & Cimpian, A. (2023). Mixed-effects models for cognitive development researchers. Journal of Cognition and Development, 24(3), 307–340.

[pdf] Porter, T., & Cimpian, A. (2023). A context’s emphasis on intellectual ability discourages expression of intellectual humility. Motivation Science, 9(2), 120–130.

 

[pdf] Heyder, A., Steinmayr, R., & Cimpian, A. (2023). Reflecting on their mission increases preservice teachers’ growth mindsets. Learning and Instruction, 86, 101770. 

 

2022

[pdf] Muradoglu, M., Marchak, K., Gelman, S. A., & Cimpian, A. (2022). Formal explanations shape children’s representations of animal kinds and social groups. Developmental Psychology, 58, 2322–2335.

 

[pdf] Reifen-Tagar, M., & Cimpian, A. (2022). Political ideology in early childhood: Making the case for studying young children in political psychology. Advances in Political Psychology, 43, 77–105.

[pdf] Barger, M. M., Wu, J., Xiong, Y., Oh, D. D., Cimpian, A., & Pomerantz, E. M. (2022). Parents’ responses to children’s math performance in early elementary school: Links with parents’ math beliefs and children’s math adjustment. Child Development, 93, e639–e655.

 

[pdf] Zhao, S., Setoh, P., Storage, D., & Cimpian, A. (2022). The acquisition of the gender-brilliance stereotype: Age trajectory, relation to parents’ stereotypes, and intersections with race/ethnicity. Child Development, 93, e581e597.

 

[pdf] Porter, T., Catalán Molina, D., Cimpian, A., Roberts, S., Frederiks, A., Blackwell, L. S., & Trzesniewski, K. (2022). Growth mindset intervention delivered by teachers boosts achievement in early adolescence. Psychological Science, 33(7), 10861096.

 

[pdf] Muradoglu, M., Horne, Z., Hammond, M. D., Leslie, S. J., & Cimpian, A. (2022). Women—particularly underrepresented minority women—and early-career academics feel like impostors in fields that value brilliance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(5), 10861100. 

 

[pdf] Vial, A. C., Muradoglu, M., Newman, G., & Cimpian, A. (2022). An emphasis on brilliance fosters masculinity-contest cultures. Psychological Science, 33(4), 595612.

 

 

[pdf] *Bailey, A. H., *Williams, A., & Cimpian, A. (2022). Based on billions of words on the internet, PEOPLE = MEN. Science Advances, 8, eabm2463.

 

[pdf] Yeager, D. S., Carroll, J. M., Buontempo, J., Cimpian, A., Woody, S., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., Murray, J., Mhatre, P., Kersting, N., Hulleman, C., Kudym, M., Murphy, M., Duckworth, A., Walton, G. M., & Dweck, C. S. (2022). Teacher mindsets help explain where a growth mindset intervention does and doesn’t work. Psychological Science, 33(1), 18–32.

 

2021

[pdf] Bian, L., & Cimpian, A. (2021). Generics about categories and generics about individuals: Same phenomenon or different? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 47(11), 18361855.

 

[pdf] Gladstone, J. R., & Cimpian, A. (2021). Which role models are effective for which students? A systematic review and four recommendations for maximizing the effectiveness of role models in STEM​. International Journal of STEM Education, 8, 59.

 

[pdf] Valtonen, J., Ahn, W., & Cimpian, A. (2021). Neurodualism: People assume that the brain affects the mind more than the mind affects the brain. Cognitive Science, 45(9), e13034.

 

[pdf] Heck, I. A., Santhanagopalan, R., Cimpian, A., & Kinzler, K. D. (2021). Understanding the developmental roots of gender gaps in politics. Psychological Inquiry, 32(2), 53–71. [target article]

 

[pdf] Heck, I. A., Santhanagopalan, R., Cimpian, A., & Kinzler, K. D. (2021). An integrative developmental framework for studying gender inequities in politics. Psychological Inquiry, 32(2), 137–152. [response to commentaries]

[pdf] Goudeau, S., & Cimpian, A. (2021). How do young children explain differences in the classroom? Implications for achievement, motivation, and educational equity. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(3), 533552.

 

[pdf] Hammond, M. D., & Cimpian, A. (2021). “Wonderful but weak”: Children’s ambivalent attitudes toward women. Sex Roles, 84, 76–90

 

bottom of page