Vitalistic causality in young children's naive biology

幼儿幼稚生物学中的活力因果关系

基本信息

批准号：
07610114
负责人：
INAGAKI Kayoko
金额：
$ 0.77万
依托单位：
Chiba University
依托单位国家：
日本
项目类别：
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
财政年份：
1995
资助国家：
日本
起止时间：
1995 至 1997
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

This project aimed at specifying the nature of vitalistic causality, which is supposed to constitute the core of naive biology that young children possess. The following results were found through a series of studies with individual interview methods :1.Both experiments dealing with the effect of contexts and those on forced analogies indicated that children as young as 5 years of age recognized commonalities between animals and plants in terms of vitalism ; these children seemed to believe that living things mean those beings which were similar to humans in terms of taking in vital force from food and water, with its surplus inducing growth. This suggests that early biology is established around taking food/water and growth.2.Experiments requesting subjects to give predictions and some explanations revealed that children ages of 5 and 6 years believed that a sufficient amount of vital power taken in from food not only prevents a person from becoming ill but also helps him/her live longer, and sometimes even cure his/her wound.3.Experiments using choice methods indicated that children aged 4-6 years recognized that biological aspects of daily activities (e.g., eats few vegetables vs.eats a lot of vegetables) influence the susceptibility to illness, but the children also believed that social/psychological aspects (e.g., tell a lie vs.never lie) make some additional contribution to susceptibility to illness. However, when asked to choose a factor between the two, the 5-year-olds chose biological factors as more important for illness, and social/psychological factors as more important for social phenomena (e.g., is invited a birthday party). On the other hand, the 4-year-olds weighed social/psychological factors in determining susceptibility to illness more heavily than the 5-year-olds, though they differentiated biological phenomena from psychological phenomena in their reasoning.

该项目旨在明确活力因果关系的本质，这被认为构成了幼儿所拥有的幼稚生物学的核心。通过一系列个人访谈法的研究发现以下结果：1.情境影响实验和强制类比实验均表明，年仅5岁的儿童就认识到了动物和植物在生命力方面的共性。 ;这些孩子似乎相信生物是指那些与人类相似的生物，它们从食物和水中吸收生命力，并通过其剩余来促进生长。这表明早期生物学是围绕食物/水和生长建立的。2.要求受试者做出预测和一些解释的实验表明，5 岁和 6 岁的儿童认为，从食物中摄入足够的生命力不仅可以防止一个人免于生病，还可以帮助他/她活得更久，有时甚至治愈他/她的伤口。3.使用选择方法的实验表明，4-6岁的儿童认识到日常活动的生物学方面（例如，少吃蔬菜）与吃大量蔬菜）影响对疾病的易感性，但孩子们也认为社会/心理方面（例如，说谎与从不撒谎）对疾病的易感性有一些额外的贡献。然而，当要求在这两个因素之间选择一个因素时，5 岁的孩子选择了对疾病更重要的生物因素，以及对社会现象更重要的社会/心理因素（例如，受邀参加生日聚会）。另一方面，4 岁儿童在决定疾病易感性时比 5 岁儿童更重视社会/心理因素，尽管他们在推理中区分了生物现象和心理现象。