I wanted to answer big questions about humanity, about how it is that we understand about the world, how we can know… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Many philosophers say it's impossible to explain our conscious experience in scientific, biological terms at all. But that's not exactly true. Scientists… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
For better or worse, we live in possible worlds as much as actual ones. We are cursed by that characteristically human guilt… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Samuel Johnson called it the vanity of human wishes, and Buddhists talk about the endless cycle of desire. Social psychologists say we… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
I've had three of my own children and spent my professional life thinking about children. And yet I still find my relation… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
What we want in students is creativity and a willingness to fail. I always say to students, 'If you've never at some… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
I think universities are trying to figure out how we could use what we know about learning to change our education system,… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Imagine if baseball were taught the way science is taught in most inner-city schools. Schoolchildren would get lectures about the history of… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Philosophers and psychologists have long puzzled over the question of how we know as much as we do despite our limited experiences. One way… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Adults tend to think they have much free will. Kids younger than six are less sure. They may be more realistic! — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
From an evolutionary perspective children are, literally, designed to learn. Childhood is a special period of protected immaturity. It gives the young breathing time… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
There is a tension between our desire to get our kids to turn out a particular way versus letting them develop to be their… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“Instead, it may be that experience itself has changed our brains so that we perceive and interpret the world in a certain way. Once… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Caring for children has always been one of the deepest and most satisfying things that a human being does, and yet it is hard… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Imaginary friends are one of the weirder forms of pretend play in childhood. But the research shows that imaginary friends actually help children understand… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“Like their parents, the Korean children used more verbs than the English-speaking kids, while the English-speaking kids used more nouns. But in addition, the… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“We decided to become development psychologists and study children because there aren't any Martians. These brilliant beings with the little bodies and big heads… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Each new generation of children grows up in the new environment its parents have created, and each generation of brains becomes wired in a… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
