Sensing the Coherence of Biology in Contrast to Psychology: Young Children’s Use of Causal Relations to Distinguish Two Foundational Domains

• Autores: Jane E. Erickson, Frank C. Keil, Kristi L. Lockhart
• Localización: Child development, ISSN 0009-3920, Vol. 81, Nº. 1, 2010, págs. 390-409
• Idioma: inglés
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• Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
• Resumen

  • To what extent do children understand that biological processes fall into 1 coherent domain unified by distinct causal principles? In Experiments 1 and 2 (N = 125) kindergartners are given triads of biological and psychological processes and asked to identify which 2 members of the triad belong together. Results show that 5-year-olds correctly cluster biological processes and separate them from psychological ones. Experiments 3 and 4 (N = 64) examine whether or not children make this distinction because they understand that biological and psychological processes operate according to fundamentally different causal mechanisms. The results suggest that 5-year-olds do possess this understanding, and furthermore, they have intuitions about the nature of these different mechanisms.