Cognition: Thinking, Intelligence, and Language 301as Piaget. One of the best-known versions of this view is the Sapir-Whorf hypoth-
esis (named for the two theorists who developed it, Edward Sapir and his student,
Benjamin Lee Whorf). This hypothesis assumes that the thought processes and con-
cepts within any culture are determined by the words of the culture (Sapir, 1921;
Whorf, 1956). It has come to be known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis, meaning
that thought processes and concepts are controlled by (relative to) language. That is,
the words people use determine much of the way in which they think about the world
around them.
One of the most famous examples used by Whorf to support this idea was that of
the Inuits, Native Americans living in the Arctic. Supposedly, the Inuits have many more
words for snow than do people in other cultures. One estimate was 23 different words,
whereas other estimates have ranged in the hundreds. Unfortunately, this anecdotal evi-
dence has turned out to be false, being more myth than reality (Pullum, 1991). In fact,
English speakers also have many different words for snow (sleet, slush, powder, dusting,
and yellow to name a few).
Is there evidence for the linguistic relativity hypothesis? Neither Sapir nor Whorf
provided any scientific studies that would support their proposition. There have been
numerous studies by other researchers, however. For example, in one study research-
ers assumed that a language’s color names would influence the ability of the people
who grew up with that language to distinguish among and perceive colors. The study
found that basic color terms did directly influence color recognition memory (Lucy &
Shweder, 1979). But an earlier series of studies of the perception of colors by Eleanor
Rosch-Heider and others (Rosch-Heider, 1972; Rosch-Heider & Olivier, 1972) had
already found just the opposite effect: Members of the Dani tribe, who have only two
names for colors, were no different in their ability to perceive all of the colors than were
the English speakers in the study. More recent studies (Davies et al., 1998a, 1998b; Laws
et al., 1995; Pinker & Bloom, 1990) support Rosch-Heider ’s findings and the idea of a
cognitive universalism (concepts are universal and influence the development of lan-
guage) rather than linguistic relativity.
Other research suggests that although the linguistic relativity hypothesis may not
work for fine perceptual discriminations such as those in the Rosch-Heider studies, it may
be an appropriate explanation for concepts of a higher level. In one study, researchers
showed pictures of two animals to preschool children (Gelman & Markman, 1986). The
pictures were of a flamingo and a bat. The children were told that the flamingo feeds its
baby mashed-up food but the bat feeds its baby milk. Then they were shown a picture of
a blackbird (which looked more like the bat than the flamingo). Half of the children were
told that the blackbird was a bird, while the other children were not. When asked how the
blackbird fed its baby, the children who had been given the bird label were more likely
to say that it fed its baby mashed-up food than were the children who were not given the
label, indicating that the preschoolers were making inferences about feeding habits based
on category membership rather than perceptual similarity—the word bird helped the chil-
dren who were given that label to place the blackbird in its proper higher-level category.
Research continues in the investigation of relationships between language and
thought and appears to support linguistic relativity and how language can shape our
thoughts about space, time, colors, and objects (Boroditsky, 2001, 2009). Even our rea-
soning can be impacted, including making important decisions on such topics as how to
manage crime (Thibodeau & Boroditsky, 2013, 2015). However, researchers do not always
agree, and for some studies that offer support, there are others that reinterpret the data,
fail to replicate, or offer critiques of the original studies, so findings are sometimes still in
question (J. Y. Chen, 2007; January & Kako, 2007).
Psychologists cannot deny the influence of language on problem solving, cogni-
tion, and memory. Sometimes a problem can simply be worded differently to have the
cognitive universalism
theory that concepts are universal
and influence the development
of language.linguistic relativity hypothesis
the theory that thought processes and
concepts are controlled by language.Breakfast in an Ethiopian restaurant. What
does “breakfast” food mean to you?