Psychological Development and Education ›› 2012, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (3): 322-328.

Previous Articles     Next Articles

New Advances in Preschool Children’s Naive Biology: Vitalistic Causality and its Application

MIAO Jing-lei, HU Qing-fen   

  1. Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875
  • Online:2012-05-15 Published:2012-05-15

Abstract: When reasoning about bodily biological phenomenons,preschool children tend to choose vitalistic causality which assumes that series of bodily processes are meant to sustain life by taking in and exchanging vital force.Vitalism is considered to be a biological-specific form of causality which is different from intentional and mechanical causality.It develops fast between 4 and 6 years old and continues to exist in older children' and adults' reasoning.In the future some issues need to be discussed further such as how culture and experience affect the development of vitalism as well as the interactions between vitalism and other types of causality.

Key words: vitalistic causality, vital force, bodily biological phenomenon, naive biology

CLC Number: 

  • B844.1
[1] Backscheider,A.G.,Shatz,M.,& Gelman,S.A.(1993).Preschoolers' ability to distinguish living kinds as a function of regrowth.Child Development,64,1242-1257.
[2] Bloom,P.(1996).Intention,history,and artifact concepts.Cognition,60,1-29.
[3] Carey,S.(1985).Conceptual change in childhood.Cambridge,MA:MIT Press.
[4] Carey,S.(1995).On the origin of causal understanding.In D.Sperber,D.Premack,& A.J.Rremack(Eds.),Causal cognition:A multidisciplinary debate(pp.268-302).New York:Oxford University press.
[5] Gelman,R.(1990).First principles organize attention to and learning about relevant data:Number and the animate-inanimate distinction as examples.Cognitive Science,14,79-106.
[6] Gelman,S.A.(2009).Essentialist reasoning about the biological world.In A.Berthoz,& Y.Christen(Eds.),Neuro-biology of Umwelt:How living beings perceive the world(pp.7-16).Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences.Gelman,S.A.,& Hirschfeld,L.A.(1999).How biological is essentialism? In S.Atran,& D.Medin(Eds.),Folk biology.Cambridge,MA:MIT Press.
[7] Inagaki,K.,& Hatano,G.(1993).Young children's understanding of the mind-body distinction.Child Development,1534-1549.
[8] Inagaki,K.,& Hatano,G.(1994a).Young children's naive theory of biology.Cognition,50,171-188.
[9] Inagaki,K.,& Hatano,G.(1994b).Young children's personifying and vitalistic biology.Cognition,50,1-25.
[10] Inagaki,K.,& Hatano,G.(1996).Young children's recognition of commonalities between animals and plants.Child Development,57,2823-2839.
[11] Inagaki,K.,& Hatano,G.(1999).Children's understanding of mindbody relationships.In M.Siegal,& C.C.Peterson(Eds.),Children's Understanding of Biology and Health(pp.23-44).Cambridge University Press Inagaki,K.,& Hatano,G.(2002).Young children's naive thinking about the biological world.New York:Psychology Press.
[12] Inagaki,K.,& Hatano,G.(2004).Vitalistic causality in young children's naive biology.Trends in Cognitive Science,8,356-362.
[13] Inagaki,K.,& Hatano,G.(2006).Young children's conception of the biological world.Current Directions in Psychological Science,15,177-181.
[14] Jaakkola,R.,& Slaughter,V.(2002).Children's body knowledge:Understanding life as a biological goal.British Journal of Developmental Psychology,20,325-342.
[15] Kelemen,D.(1999).Function,goals and intention:Children's teleological reasoning about objects.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,3,461-468.
[16] Keil,F.C.(1994).The birth and nurturance of concepts by domains:The origins of concepts of living things.In L.Hirschfeld,& S.Gelman(Eds.),Mapping the mind:Domain specificity in cognition and culture.New York:Cambridge University Press.
[17] Keil,F.C.(2003).That's life:Coming to understand biology.Human Development,46,369-377.
[18] Zhu,L.Q.,Liu,G.Y.,& Tardif,T.(2009).Chinese children's explanations for illness.International Journal of Behavioral Development,33,516-519.
[19] Morris,S.C.,Taplin,J.E.,& Gelman,S.A.(2000).Vitalism in naive biological thinking.Developmental Psychology,36,582-595.
[20] Poling,D.A.,& Evans,E.M.(2002).Why do birds of a feather flock together? Developmental change in the use of multiple explanations:intention,teleology and essentialism.British Journal of Developmental Psychology,20,112.
[21] Spelke,E.S.,Phillips,A.,& Woodward,A.L.(1995).Infants' knowledge of object motion and human action.In D.Sperber,D.Premack,& A.Premack(Eds.),Causal cognition:A multidisciplinary debate(pp.44-78).Oxford:Claredon Press.
[22] Slaughter,V.(2005).Young children's understanding of death.Australian Psychologist,40,179-186.
[23] Slaughter,V.,Jaakkola,R.,& Carey,S.(1999).Constructing a coherent theory:Children's biological understanding of life and death.
[24] In M.Siegal,& C.Petersen(Eds.),Children's Understanding of biology and health(pp.71-76).Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
[25] Slaughter,V.,& Lyons,M.(2003).Learning about life and death in early childhood.Cognitive Psychology,46,1-30.
[26] Slaughter,V.,& Ting,C.(2010).Development of ideas about food and nutrition from preschool to university.Appetite,55,556-564.
[27] Toyama,N.(2010).Japanese children's and adults' awareness of psychogenic bodily reactions.International Journal of Behavioral Development,34,1-9.
[28] Wellman,H.M.,& Gelman,S.A.(1992).Cognitive development:Foundational theories and core domains.Annual Review of Psychology,43,337-375.
[29] Waxman,S.,Medin,D.,& Ross,N.(2007).Folk biological reasoning from a cross-cultural developmental perspective:Early essentialist notions are shaped by cultural beliefs.Developmental Psychology,43,294-308
[30] 方富熹.(1985).3-5岁儿童关于认知生物和非生物的实验研究.心理学报,17,62-70.
[31] 朱莉琪,方富熹.(2000).学前儿童"朴素生物学理论”发展的实验研究.心理学报,32,177-182.
[32] 朱莉琪,方富熹.(1999).学前儿童朴素生物学理论的研究.心理学动态,7,31-36.
[1] ZHOU Hai-li, ZHOU Hui. 4- to 7-Year-olds' Trust Judgment Based on Trustee's Trustworthiness Traits and Scenarios [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(6): 570-576.
[2] ZHU Ying, LIU Ya-peng, ZHANG Guang-zhen, ZHANG Yin-ping, LIANG Zong-bao, YE Ming, DENG Hui-hua. The Role of Child Affectivity on Parenting Style at Toddlerhood [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(6): 577-584.
[3] LI Yan-fang, XU Liang-yuan, LV Ying, LIU Li-jun, WANG Yun. The Associations between Mother-child Relationship, Teacher-child Relationship and Social Adaptive Behaviors for Preschool Migrant Children [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(6): 624-634.
[4] LU Chun, GUO Hong-Li, SI Ji-wei, SUN Yan. Representation Patterns of Children’s and Adults’ Fraction Estimation on Different Number Lines [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(5): 449-456.
[5] LIU Ni-na, TONG Wen, YAN Guo-li. The Development of Chinese Orthographic Awareness in Pre-school Children [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(5): 457-465.
[6] CHEN Guang-hui. The Relationship between Bullying/victimization and Peer Network among Children:based on p* Model [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(5): 474-481.
[7] LU Feng-ying, TANG Yong-long, CAO Meng-lu, LIU Xiao-jun. Child Abuse and Motivation to Abstain from Drugs:The Mediating Role of Self-Concept [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(5): 527-532.
[8] MA Feng-ling, TANG Yu-long, ZHENG Ting-ting, XU Fen. The Development of 3-to 5-Year-olds' Trust Judgment Based on Face [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(4): 337-344.
[9] WU Hai-zhen, ZHAO Lei, LU Ying-jun. The Effect of Mozart Music on Child Spatio-Temporal Reasoning Ability [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(4): 345-354.
[10] ZHONG You-jie, LI Yan-hua, ZHANG Jin-fu. A Short-term Intervention Study on the Children’s Aggressive Behavior:From the Perspective of Social Information Processing [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(3): 225-233.
[11] LI Zhan-xing, CAO Xian-cai, PANG Wei-guo, NIU Yu-bai. 6-to 10-Year-Old Children’s Moral Emotion Judgment and Attribution to the Actors in Victimizing Context [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(3): 252-258.
[12] GULNUR Azat, SU Yan-jie, YU Wen. Understanding of Lies and its Relation to the Understanding of Self and Others’ False Belief in Children With and Without Autism [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(2): 113-120.
[13] NIE Jin-wen, LU Yong-li. Fathers’ Involvement and Children’s Delay of Gratification:the Moderating Role of Gender [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(2): 121-128.
[14] HAO Zhen, CUI Li-juan. The Impact of Perceived Discrimination on Chinese Migrant Children’s Social Integration:Mediator Mechanisms And Moderator Effect of Self-esteem [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(2): 137-144.
[15] NI Shi-guang, LI Hong. The Effect of Coping and Social Support on the Relationship between Perceived Discrimination and Identity Integration among Chinese Migrant Children [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2014, 30(1): 31-38.
Viewed
Full text


Abstract

Cited

  Shared   
  Discussed   
No Suggested Reading articles found!