Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: of personal identity. We manipulate several factors that arbitrate between transitivity and intransitivity and find most support for transitivity: In contrast to the prior work, most participants do not make intransitive judgments when there is any reason to favor one individual over another. People change which single individual they personally identify with, depending on which individual competes more strongly or weakly for identity, rather than identifying with both individuals. Even when two individuals are identical and therefore both entitled to be the same person, we find that people make more transitive judgments once they understand the practical commitments of their responses (Experiment 4) and report not being able to actually imagine two perspectives simultaneously when reasoning about the scenario (Experiment 5). In short, we suggest that while people may make intransitive judgments, these do not reflect that they psychologically represent identity in an intransitive manner. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
DOI: 10.1037/xge0001711
Authors: Julian De Freitas, Lance J. Rips
Institutions: Harvard University, Northwestern University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4405349683