Paul Bloom
organization:Department of Psychology, Yale University, http://www.yale.edu/psychology/index.html
homepage:http://www.yale.edu/psychology/FacInfo/Bloom.html
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Description

Research Interests

I am interested in the development and nature of our common-sense understanding of ourselves and other people. My current research explores the following areas:

Bodies and souls. There is considerable evidence that adults are natural dualists--we see the world as Descartes did, as containing physical things (or bodies) and social entities (or souls). I am interested in how this common-sense dualism emerges in development, and the implications that it has for domains such as morality and religion.

Art and fiction. There are some hard questions that arise when we consider the human capacity to make sense of artwork and fiction. What distinguishes art from everything else? Why do adults consider forgeries to be inferior to the real thing (even if they are perfect duplicates) and when in development does this intuition emerge? And how do we think about the relationship between different fictional worlds, such as the fictional world of Harry Potter and the (also fictional, but very different) world of Batman and Robin?

Moral Reasoning. My students and I are becoming interested in certain fundamental questions within moral psychology. Why do we find certain actions to be disgusting (such as certain sex acts), and why does this emotional reaction lead to moral condemnation? What are children's intuitions about fair and unfair distribution of resources? When does moral hypocrisy emerge? One goal of this research is to understand the developing interplay between deliberative reasoning and the moral emotions.

Most of these projects are student-initiated, and all of the work in my laboratory is strongly interdisciplinary, bringing in theory and research from areas such as cognitive, social, and developmental psychology, evolutionary theory, linguistics, theology, and philosophy.

Sample Publications

Birch, S. & Bloom, P. (in press) The curse of knowledge in reasoning about false beliefs. Psychological Science.

Preissler, M. A. & Bloom, P. (in press) Two-year-olds appreciate the dual nature of pictures. Psychological Science.

Bloom, P. (Dec. 2005). Is God an accident? Atlantic Monthly.

Bloom, P. (2004). Descartes' Baby: How the science of child development explains what makes us human. New York: Basic Books.

Bloom, P. (2000). How children learn the meanings of words. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press


Lectures:
YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
0 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 20 - The Good Life: Happiness

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
58 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 19 - What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part II

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
56 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 18 - What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part I (Guest Lecture by Professor Susan Nolen-Hoeksema)

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
88 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 17 - A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part II; Some Mysteries: Sleep, Dreams, and Laughter

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
31 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 16 - A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part I

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
26 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 15 - A Person in the World of People: Morality

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
21 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 14 - What Motivates Us: Sex

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
252 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 13 - Why Are People Different?: Differences

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
108 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 12 - Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part II

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
19 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 11 - Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part I

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
27 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 10 - Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Evolution and Rationality

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
95 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 9 - Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love (Guest Lecture by Professor Peter Salovey)

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
115 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 8 - Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Vision and Memory (cont.)

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
25 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 7 - Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Language (cont.); Vision and Memory

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
85 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 6 - How Do We Communicate?: Language in the Brain, Mouth and the Hands

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
196 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 5 - What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
171 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 4 - Foundations: Skinner

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
44 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 3 - Foundations: Freud

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
239 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 2 - Foundations: This Is Your Brain

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
547 views

Paul Bloom Lecture 1 - Introduction

as author at YALE PSYC 110 - Introduction to Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom,
522 views