Perceiving persons and their purposes: teleology, normativity, and personal identity

Abstract

Multiple investigations find a close association between morality and identity: morally-relevant traits are perceived as more definitive of personal identity than nonmoral traits. Three studies tested whether teleological cognition explains this moral essentialism in folk reasoning about personal identity. In Study 1, moral traits were perceived as both more identity-relevant and more purpose-relevant than nonmoral traits. In Studies 2A and 2B, whether characters continued to fulfill social-role functions influenced perceptions of their authenticity and identity persistence across cases of personal change. These studies also suggest potential additional nuance to these patterns depending on changes’ valence. Overall, these findings indicate that teleology affects how people intuitively understand personal identity, and that teleological and normative/moral judgments are intertwined in this domain.