PMID: 9187061Mar 1, 1997Paper

Explaining human movements and actions: children's understanding of the limits of psychological explanation

Cognition
C A Schult, H M Wellman

Abstract

Human actions and movements can be caused by psychological states (e.g. beliefs and desires), physical forces (e.g. gravity) and biological processes (e.g. reflexes). In three studies we explored young children's understanding of the causes of human movements in order to examine their ability to differentiate and coordinate psychological, physical and biological reasoning to account for the activities of one single entity--a human being. In Study 1, 4-year-olds explained characters' voluntary actions, mistakes, physically-caused and biologically-caused behaviors and movements. Children gave psychological explanations for the intended actions and mistakes, but biological and physical explanations for the biologically-caused and physically-caused movements. Studies 2 and 3 extended the investigation to younger children (3-year-olds), encompassed a greater variety of items, and used several converging methods in order to examine children's judgments and explanations. Consistently, 3- and 4-year-olds gave appropriately different responses and explanations to the different item types. These findings show that far from viewing people in strictly psychological terms, young children evidence multiple causal-explanatory construals of hu...Continue Reading

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Jun 1, 1996·Child Development·H M WellmanC A Schult

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Citations

Apr 1, 1997·New Directions for Child Development·H M WellmanC A Schult
Jul 1, 2005·Cognitive Development·Cristina M Atance, Andrew N Meltzoff
Jun 28, 2002·Cognition·Ann T PhillipsElizabeth S Spelke
Aug 2, 2003·Cognition·Gail D HeymanSusan A Gelman
May 7, 2008·Journal of Cognition and Development : Official Journal of the Cognitive Development Society·David M SobelEmily J Blumenthal
Mar 13, 1999·Annual Review of Psychology·J H Flavell
Dec 2, 2005·Annual Review of Psychology·Frank C Keil
Aug 1, 2004·Journal of Cognition and Development : Official Journal of the Cognitive Development Society·Jessica W Giles, Gail D Heyman
Jan 14, 2005·Personality and Social Psychology Review : an Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc·B F Malle
Sep 13, 2001·Developmental Psychology·A K Hickling, H M Wellman
Dec 15, 2004·Developmental Science·Henry M WellmanNicole LaLonde
May 23, 2007·Child Development·Andrew Shtulman, Susan Carey
Nov 6, 2012·Scandinavian Journal of Psychology·Jeff Loucks, Andrew N Meltzoff
Dec 17, 2010·Developmental Science·Claire Cook, David M Sobel
Aug 25, 2012·Infant and Child Development·Katherine S ChoePaul Bloom
Nov 26, 2005·Cognition·Ann T Phillips, Henry M Wellman
Aug 27, 2015·Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Cognitive Science·David M Sobel, Cristine H Legare
Feb 28, 2015·Cognition·Tamar KushnirHenry M Wellman
Nov 11, 2014·Journal of Cognition and Development : Official Journal of the Cognitive Development Society·Cristine H LegareSusan A Gelman
Sep 1, 2004·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Kayoko Inagaki, Giyoo Hatano
May 20, 2005·Zeitschrift für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und Psychotherapie·Nicole BruningBeate Herpertz-Dahlmann
Mar 14, 2018·Nature Communications·Hilary RichardsonRebecca Saxe
Mar 14, 2019·Child Development·Aiyana K WillardCristine H Legare
Mar 17, 2020·Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development·Maureen A CallananJanella Watson
Jul 28, 2020·Child Development·Brandon W Goulding, Ori Friedman
Feb 2, 2021·Child Development·Brandon W Goulding, Ori Friedman
Jan 19, 2021·Child Development·David M Sobel, Zoe Finiasz
Jun 27, 2017·Journal of Experimental Child Psychology·Andrew Shtulman, Jonathan Phillips
Oct 5, 2021·Cognitive Science·Teresa FlanaganLauren H Howard

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