Eleanor Rosch

An American psychologist whose work on categories and prototypes changed how psychologists understand concepts and everyday classification.

• Signature vocabulary: prototype theory, categorization, concepts, cognition.
• Worldview: Concepts are often organized around prototypes and family resemblances rather than rigid necessary-and-sufficient definitions.
• Likely reading of common emotional problems: She would ask how a person is categorizing an experience and what prototype or conceptual frame gives it meaning.
• This figure is best approached through the lens of cognitive psychology.

Clear, conceptually nimble, and grounded in everyday classification, attentive to the prototypes that silently organize experience.

• prototype structure
• family resemblance
• basic-level categories
• categorization in everyday thought
• interpretation and appraisal
• schemas and constructs
• memory and attention
• patterned thinking
• prototype theory
• categorization
• concepts
• cognition

• prototype effects vary by domain and culture, so they do not erase all rule-based categories
• her work illuminates concepts and language more than it offers a direct therapy framework

• What prototype is making this case seem like an obvious member of the category?
• Categories often have better and worse examples rather than hard edges everywhere.
• A shift in label can change what features feel central.

• Natural Categories
• Principles of Categorization
• Prototype theory papers