Journal
COGNITION
Volume 84, Issue 3, Pages 237-265Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/S0010-0277(02)00052-5
Keywords
inductive inference; development of social cognition; attribution
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Funding
- NICHD NIH HHS [R01 HD37520] Funding Source: Medline
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Past research suggests that young children are often reluctant to generalize about people's behavior. Three experiments involving 102 4-5-year-olds, 84 7-8-year-olds, and 107 adults explored the conditions under which inductive inferences about people are made. There was an age-based increase in propensity to predict consistency in psychological/intentional causal relations. Children often predicted change; people would behave differently in the future than they did in the past. Younger children limited predictions of consistency to non-psychological contexts. Older children showed some appreciation of stable motivations (e.g. traits, preferences). The results are consistent with the hypothesis that children's theories of mind emphasize situational influences, with personal influences appearing in middle-childhood. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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