Shtulman, A. (2023). Learning to imagine: The science of discovering new possibilities. Harvard University Press.
Shtulman, A. (2017). Scienceblind: Why our intuitive theories about the world are so often wrong. Basic Books.
Shtulman, A. (under contract). Conflicted: How contradictory beliefs drive thinking and learning. MIT Press.
Belanger, M., Potvin, P., Horst, S., Shtulman, A., & Mortimer, E. (2022), Multidisciplinary perspectives on representational pluralism in human cognition. Routledge.
Journal Articles
Shtulman, A. (in press). Conflicting views of nature and their impact on evolution understanding. Science & Education.
Shtulman, A. (2024). Children's susceptibility to online misinformation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 55, 101753.
Shtulman, A., Goulding, B., & Friedman, O. (2024). Improbable but possible: Training children to accept the possibility of unusual events. Developmental Psychology, 60, 17-27.
Shtulman, A., & Young, A. G. (2024). Tempering the tension between science and intuition. Cognition, 243, 105680.
Young, A. G., & Shtulman, A. (2024). Children's cognitive reflection predicts successful interpretations of covariation data. Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, 2, 1441395.
Barnes, M. E., Aini, R. Q., ... Shtulman, A. et al. (2024). Evaluating the current state of evolution acceptance instruments: A research coordination network meeting report. Evolution: Education and Outreach, 17, 1.
Shtulman, A., Harrington, C., Hetzel, C., Kim, J. Palumbo, C., & Rountree-Shtulman, T. (2023). Could It? Should It? Cognitive reflection facilitates children's reasoning about possibility and permissibility. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 235, 105727.
Shtulman, A., & Young, A. G. (2023). The development of cognitive reflection. Child Development Perspectives, 17, 59-66.
Sullivan, J., Tillman, K. A., & Shtulman, A. (2023). Stay away, Santa: Children’s beliefs about the impact of COVID-19 on real and fictional beings. Developmental Psychology, 59, 940-952.
Wong, E. Y., Chu, T. N., ... Shtulman, A. et al. (2023). Development of a classification system for live surgical feedback. JAMA Network Open, 6 , e2320702.
Laca, J. A., Kocielnik, R., … Shtulman, A. et al. (2022). Using real-time feedback to improve surgical performance on a robotic tissue dissection task. European Urology Open Science, 46, 15-21.
Shtulman, A. (2022). Religion as a testing ground for cognitive science. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 7, 200-212.
Shtulman, A. (2022). The familiar appeal of imaginary worlds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, E298.
Shtulman, A., Villalobos, A., & Ziel, D. (2021). Whitewashing nature: Sanitized depictions of biology in children’s books and parent-child conversations. Child Development, 92, 2356-2374.
Shtulman, A., & Young, A. G. (2021). Learning evolution by collaboration. BioScience, 71, 1091-1102.
Barlev, M., & Shtulman, A. (2021). Minds, bodies, spirits, and gods: Does widespread belief in disembodied beings imply that we are inherent dualists? Psychological Review, 128, 1007-1021.
Gong, T., Young, A. G., & Shtulman, A. (2021). The development of cognitive reflection in China. Cognitive Science, 45, 12966.
Gong, T., & Shtulman, A. (2021). The plausible impossible: Chinese adults hold graded notions of impossibility. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 21, 76-93.
McPhetres, J., & Shtulman, A. (2021). Piloerection is not a reliable physiological correlate of awe. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 159, 88-93.
Young, A. G., & Shtulman, A. (2020). Children's cognitive reflection predicts conceptual understanding in science and mathematics. Psychological Science, 31, 1396-1408.
Young, A. G., & Shtulman, A. (2020). How children's cognitive reflection shapes their science understanding. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1247.
Shtulman, A., & Walker, C. M. (2020). Developing an understanding of science. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 2, 111-132.
Shtulman, A., & Legare, C. H. (2020). Competing explanations of competing explanations: Accounting for conflict between scientific and folk explanations. Topics in Cognitive Science, 12,1337-1362.
Shtulman, A., Share, I., Silber-Marker, R., & Landrum, A. R. (2020). OMG GMO! Parent-child conversations about genetically modified foods. Cognitive Development, 55, 100895.
Shtulman, A., Foushee, R., Barner, D., Dunham, Y., & Srinivasan, M. (2019). When Allah meets Ganesha: Developing supernatural concepts in a religiously diverse society. Cognitive Development, 52, 100806.
Bowman-Smith, C. K., Shtulman, A., & Friedman, O. (2019). Distant lands make for distant possibilities: Children view improbable events as more possible in far-away locations. Developmental Psychology, 5, 722-728.
Dunk, R. D. P., Barnes, M. E., ... Shtulman, A. et al. (2019). Evolution education involves a complex landscape of interrelated factors. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 3, 327-329.
Shtulman, A. (2019). Do religious experiences shape religious beliefs or religious concepts? Religion, Brain, & Behavior, 9, 265-267.
Shtulman, A., & Rattner, M. (2018). Theories of God: Explanatory coherence in religious cognition. PLoS ONE, 13, e0209758.
Shtulman, A., & Phillips, J. (2018). Differentiating "could" from "should": Developmental changes in modal cognition. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 165, 161-182.
Shtulman, A. (2018). Communicating developmental science to nonscientists, or how to write something even your family will want to read. Journal of Cognition and Development, 165, 161-182.
Legare, C. H., Opfer, J., Busch, J. T. A., & Shtulman, A. (2018). A field guide for teaching evolution in the social sciences. Evolution and Human Behavior, 39, 257-268.
Shtulman, A., & Morgan, C. (2017). The explanatory structure of unexplainable events: Causal constraints on magical reasoning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24, 1573-1585.
Valdesolo, P., Shtulman, A., & Baron, A. S. (2017). Science is awe-some: The emotional antecedents of science learning. Emotion Review, 9, 1-7.
Shtulman, A., Neal, C. & Lindquist, G. (2016). Children's ability to learn evolutionary explanations for biological adaptation. Early Education and Development, 27, 1222–1236.
Shtulman, A., & Harrington, K. (2016). Tensions between science and intuition across the lifespan. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8, 118-137.
Shtulman, A., & Lindeman, M. (2016). Attributes of God: Conceptual foundations of a foundational belief. Cognitive Science, 40, 635-670.
Shtulman, A. (2015). How lay cognition constrains scientific cognition. Philosophy Compass, 10/11, 785-798.
Shtulman, A. (2015). What is more informative in the history of science, the signal or the noise? Cognitive Science, 39, 842-845.
Shtulman, A., & Yoo, R. I. (2015). Children's understanding of physical possibility constrains their belief in Santa Claus. Cognitive Development, 34, 51-62.
Shtulman, A., & Tong, L. (2013). Cognitive parallels between moral judgment and modal judgment. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 20, 1327-1335.
Shtulman, A. (2013). Epistemic similarities between students’ scientific and supernatural beliefs. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105, 199-212.
Shtulman, A., & Calabi, P. (2013). Tuition vs. intuition: Effects of instruction on naive theories of evolution. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 59, 141-167.
Shtulman, A., & Valcarcel, J. (2012). Scientific knowledge suppresses but does not supplant earlier intuitions. Cognition, 124, 209-215.
Shtulman, A., & Checa, I. (2012). Parent-child conversations about evolution in the context of an interactive museum display. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 5, 27-46.
Shtulman, A. (2009). The development of possibility judgment within and across domains. Cognitive Development, 24, 293-309.
Shtulman, A. (2009). Rethinking the role of resubsumption in conceptual change. Educational Psychologist, 44, 41-47.
Shtulman, A. (2008). Variation in the anthropomorphization of supernatural beings and its implications for cognitive theories of religion. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 1123-1138.
Shtulman, A., & Schulz, L. (2008). The relation between essentialist beliefs and evolutionary reasoning. Cognitive Science, 32, 1049-1062.
Shtulman, A. (2007). Imagination is only as rational as the purpose to which it is put. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 465-466.
Shtulman, A., & Carey, S. (2007). Improbable or impossible? How children reason about the possibility of extraordinary events. Child Development, 78, 1015-1032.
Lombrozo, T., Shtulman, A., & Weisberg, M. (2006). The intelligent design controversy: Lessons from psychology and education. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 56-57.
Shtulman, A. (2006). Qualitative differences between naive and scientific theories of evolution. Cognitive Psychology, 52, 170-194.
Book Chapters
Shtulman, A. (2023). When competing explanations converge: Coronavirus as a case study for why scientific explanations coexist with folk explanations. In J. N. Schupbach & D. H. Glass (Eds.), Conjunctive explanations: The nature, epistemology, and psychology of explanatory multiplicity (pp. 246-268). Routledge.
Shtulman, A. (2022). How intuitive beliefs inoculate us against scientific ones. In Musolino, J., Sommer, J., & Hemmer, P. (Eds.), The cognitive science of belief (pp. 353-373). Cambridge University Press.
Shtulman, A. (2022). Navigating the conflict between science and intuition. In Belanger, M., Potvin, P., Horst, S., Shtulman, A., & Mortimer, E. (Eds.), Multidisciplinary perspectives on representational pluralism in human cognition (pp. 122-140). Routledge.
Shtulman, A., & Young, A. G. (2020). Why do logically incompatible explanations seem psychologically compatible? Science, pseudoscience, religion, and superstition. In K. McCain & K. Kampourakis (Eds.), Scientific knowledge? An introduction to contemporary epistemology of science (pp. 163-178). Routledge.
Shtulman, A. (2019). Doubly counterintuitive: Cognitive obstacles to the discovery and the learning of scientific ideas and why they often differ. In R. Samuels & D. Wilkenfeld (Eds.), Advances in experimental philosophy of science (pp. 97-121). Bloomsbury.
Shtulman, A. (2018). Missing links: How cladograms reify common evolutionary misconceptions. In K. Rutten, S. Blancke, & R. Soetaert (Eds.), Perspectives on science and culture (pp. 149-169). Purdue University Press.
Legare, C. H., & Shtulman, A. (2018). Explanatory pluralism across cultures and development. In J. Proust & M. Fortier (Eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to metacognitive diversity (pp. 415-432). Oxford University Press.
Shtulman, A., & Lombrozo, T. (2016). Bundles of contradiction: A coexistence view of conceptual change. In D. Barner & A. S. Baron (Eds.), Core knowledge and conceptual change (pp. 49-67). Oxford University Press.
Shtulman, A. (2014). How not to teach a class. In E. M. Furtak & I. P. Renga (Eds.), The road to tenure (pp. 67-80). Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield.
Shtulman, A., & Calabi, P. (2012). Cognitive constraints on the understanding and acceptance of evolution. In K. S. Rosengren, S. Brem, E. M. Evans, & G. Sinatra (Eds.), Evolution challenges: Integrating research and practice in teaching and learning about evolution (pp. 47-65). Oxford University Press.
Shtulman, A. (2008). The development of core knowledge domains. In E. M. Anderman & L. Anderman (Eds.), Psychology of classroom learning: An enclyclopedia (pp. 320-325). Thompson Gale.
Other Publications
Shtulman, A., Harrington, C., Hetzel, C., Kim, J., Palumbo, C., & Rountree-Shtulman, T. (2023). Developmental relations between cognitive reflection and modal cognition. Proceedings of the 45th Conference of the Cognitive Science Society .
Shtulman, A., & Meller, D. (2022). Priming counterintuitive scientific ideas. Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 3038-3043.
Xu, S., Shtulman, A., & Young, A. G. (2022). Can children detect fake news? Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2988-2993.
Shtulman, A., Villalobos, A., & Ziel, D. (2021). Parent-child conversation about negative aspects of the biological world. Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 714-720.
Gong, T., & Shtulman, A. (2020). The plausible impossible: Graded notions of impossibility across cultures. Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2466-2472.
Young, A. G., Geddes, I., Weider, C., & Shtulman, A. (2019). Tensions between science and intuition in school-aged children. Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 1234-1240.
Young, A. G., Laca, J., Dieffenbach, G., Hossain, E., Mann, D., & Shtulman, A. (2018). Can science beat out intuition? Increasing the accessibility of counterintuitive scientific ideas. Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 1238-1243.
Young, A. G., Powers, A., Pilgrim, L., & Shtulman, A. (2018) Developing a cognitive reflection test for school-age children. Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 1232-1237.
Shtulman, A., & Young, A. G. (2017). Bridging a conceptual divide: How peer collaboration facilitates science learning. Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Shtulman, A., & Morgan, C. (2016). The plausible impossible: Causal constraints on magical reasoning. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Shtulman, A. (2014). Science v. Intuition: Why it is difficult for scientific knowledge to take root. Skeptic, 19, 46-50.
Shtulman, A., & McCallum, K. (2014). Cognitive reflection predicts science understanding. Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2937-2942.
Shtulman, A., & Lindeman, M. (2014). God can hear but does he have ears? Dissociations between psychological and physiological dimensions of anthropomorphism. Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2931-2936.
Shtulman, A., & Valcarcel, J. (2011). Ghosts of theories past: The ever-present influence of long-discarded theories. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 213-218.
Shtulman, A. (2011). Why people do not understand evolution: An analysis of the cognitive barriers to fully grasping the unity of life. Skeptic, 16, 41-46.
Shtulman, A. (2010). Confidence without competence in the evaluation of scientific claims. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 302-307.
Shtulman, A. (2010). Theories of God: Explanatory coherence in a non-scientific domain. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 1295-1300.
Shtulman, A., & Calabi, P. (2008). Learning, understanding, and acceptance: The case of evolution. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 235-240.
Online Articles
Shtulman, A. (2024, June 5). Why children are susceptible to online misinformation. Sesame Workshop.
Shtulman, A. (2023, December 18). Imagination is a skill we develop, not a trait we lose. Psychology Today.
Shtulman, A. (2021, March 31). The best books on the cognitive foundations of science. Shepherd.
Shtulman, A. (2021, Jan. 21). Violations of social norms stretch imagination. Psychology Today.
Shtulman, A. (2020, June 12). Ill-informed behavior is no safeguard against illness. Psychology Today.
Shtulman, A. (2020, Feb. 12). Are romantic beliefs rational? Psychology Today.
Shtulman, A. (2019, May 31). Little League baseball needs a growth mindset. Psychology Today.
Shtulman, A. (2018, November 29). When do attempts to counter gender stereotypes backfire? Psychology Today.
Shtulman, A. (2018, July 29). Fake news exploits our obliviousness to proper sourcing. Psychology Today.
Shtulman, A. (2017, Nov. 22). This Thanksgiving, don't mistake getting along for giving in. Psychology Today.
Shtulman, A. (2017, Aug. 14). Do you have any idea what cases a solar eclipse? Psychology Today.
Shtulman, A. (2017, May 29). In public understanding of science, alternative facts are the norm. NPR: Cosmos & Culture.
Shtulman, A. (2016, Feb. 12). Why Darwin's tree of life is a cognitively compelling icon of evolution. This View of Life.
Shtulman, A. (2015, Dec. 4). My resolution: To be more attentive to advantageous inequity. This View of Life.
