(This article was originally published at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, and syndicated at StatsBlogs.)
I think there’s something wrong this op-ed by developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik, “4-year-olds don’t act like Trump,” and which begins,
The analogy is pervasive among his critics: Donald Trump is like a child. . . . But the analogy is profoundly wrong, and it’s unfair to children. The scientific developmental research of the past 30 years shows that Mr. Trump is utterly unlike a 4-year-old.
Gopnik continues with a list of positive attributes, each one which, she asserts, is held by four-year-olds but not by the president:
Four-year-olds care deeply about the truth. . . . But Mr. Trump doesn’t just lie; he seems not even to care whether his statements are true.
Four-year-olds are insatiably curious. One study found that the average preschooler asks hundreds of questions per day. . . . Mr. Trump refuses to read and is bored by anything that doesn’t involve him personally.
Four-year-olds can pay attention. . . . They pay special attention to events that contradict what they already believe. Mr. Trump refuses to pay attention to anything that clashes with his preconceptions.
Four-year-olds understand the difference between fantasy and reality. . . . Mr. Trump seems to have no sense of the boundary between his self-aggrandizing fantasies and reality.
Four-year-olds have a “theory of mind,” an understanding of their own minds and those of others. In my lab we have found that 4-year-olds recognize that their own past beliefs might have been wrong. Mr. Trump contradicts himself without hesitation and doesn’t seem to recognize any conflict between his past and present beliefs.
Four-year-olds, contrary to popular belief, are not egocentric or self-centered. . . . In fact, children as young as 1½ demonstrate both empathy and altruism . . . Mr. Trump displays neither empathy nor altruism, and his egocentrism is staggering.
Four-year-olds have a strong moral sense. Children as young as 2½ say that hurting another child is always wrong, even if an authority figure were to say otherwise. . . . Mr. Trump admires authoritarian leaders who have no compunctions about harming their own people.
Four-year-olds are sensitive to social norms and think that they and other people should obey them. . . . Mr. Trump has time and again shown his contempt for norms of behavior in every community he has belonged to. . . .
My problem with what Gopnik here is that she seems to be treating four-year-olds as a single kind of thing. But four-year-olds vary! There are lots of four-year-olds out there who are self-centered, who admire authoritarian leaders, who don’t pay attention, who show their contempt for norms of behavior, etc. This sort of thing happens all the time.
From the other direction, I don’t agree with everything Gopnik says about Trump. Yes, he contradicts himself without hesitation but this could well be a tactic he has learned to be effective in business and politics. Unfortunately, tactics that have worked in the past don’t always keep working in the future—but all of this is a far cry from saying that Trump operates without a “theory of mind.” And I disagree with the statement that Trump “refuses to pay attention to anything that clashes with his preconceptions.” What about all that tweeting of his: often that’s in reaction to news that clashes with his view of the world, right?
But the Trump thing is just an aside. My main concern is that Gopnik is saying things about “four-year-olds” as if average behavior applied to everyone. Adults vary in their personalities—Donald Trump is no Mike Pence, and vice-versa—and children vary too. Trump could well share some noticeable traits with many four-year-olds even if their average behaviors are not quite like his.
It’s easy to fall into a deterministic trap but we should avoid it.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that four-year-olds are no different from adults, nor am I questioning the value of studying average patterns in how four-year-olds think and behave. I think Gopnik’s research is important and I like that she conducts very specific studies and also considers the larger implications of the research findings in her subfield. This is what science is all about. In this case, I just think that she has been led astray by a tendency to identify the average as the whole.
The post #NotAll4YearOlds appeared first on Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.
Please comment on the article here: Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
