Cognition. 2002 Jul;84(3):237-65.

Children's predictions of consistency in people's actions.

Source

Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1025 W. Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA. cwkalish@facstaff.wisc.edu

Abstract

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.

PMID:: 12044735; [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Publication Types, MeSH Terms, Grant Support

Publication Types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH Terms

Grant Support

R01 HD37520/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Other Literature Sources

Medical

Supplemental Content

Save items

Related citations in PubMed

Review The developmental origins of naïve psychology in infancy. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2009]
Review The developmental origins of naïve psychology in infancy.
Poulin-Dubois D, Brooker I, Chow V. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2009; 37:55-104.
Components of young children's trait understanding: behavior-to-trait inferences and trait-to-behavior predictions. [Child Dev. 2007]
Components of young children's trait understanding: behavior-to-trait inferences and trait-to-behavior predictions.
Liu D, Gelman SA, Wellman HM. Child Dev. 2007 Sep-Oct; 78(5):1543-58.
Children's developing awareness of diversity in people's trains of thought. [Child Dev. 2004]
Children's developing awareness of diversity in people's trains of thought.
Eisbach AO. Child Dev. 2004 Nov-Dec; 75(6):1694-707.
The development of bases for trait attribution: children's understanding of traits as causal mechanisms based on desire. [Dev Psychol. 1998]
The development of bases for trait attribution: children's understanding of traits as causal mechanisms based on desire.
Yuill N, Pearson A. Dev Psychol. 1998 May; 34(3):574-86.
Review [Role of the implicit theories of intelligence in learning situations]. [Encephale. 2004]
Review [Role of the implicit theories of intelligence in learning situations].
Da Fonseca D, Cury F, Bailly D, Rufo M. Encephale. 2004 Sep-Oct; 30(5):456-63.

See reviews... See all...

Cited by 3 PubMed Central articles

A bump on a bump? Emerging intuitions concerning the relative difficulty of the sciences. [J Exp Psychol Gen. 2010]
A bump on a bump? Emerging intuitions concerning the relative difficulty of the sciences.
Keil FC, Lockhart KL, Schlegel E. J Exp Psychol Gen. 2010 Feb; 139(1):1-15.
From ugly duckling to swan? Japanese and American beliefs about the stability and origins of traits. [Cogn Dev. 2009]
From ugly duckling to swan? Japanese and American beliefs about the stability and origins of traits.
Lockhart KL, Nakashima N, Inagaki K, Keil FC. Cogn Dev. 2009 Jan 1; 23(1):155-179.
Judgments of the lucky across development and culture. [J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008]
Judgments of the lucky across development and culture.
Olson KR, Dunham Y, Dweck CS, Spelke ES, Banaji MR. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008 May; 94(5):757-76.

Related information

Related Citations
Calculated set of PubMed citations closely related to the selected article(s) retrieved using a word weight algorithm. Related articles are displayed in ranked order from most to least relevant, with the “linked from” citation displayed first.
Cited in PMC
Full-text articles in the PubMed Central Database that cite the current articles.

Recent activity

Clear Turn Off Turn On

Children's predictions of consistency in people's actions.
Children's predictions of consistency in people's actions.
Cognition. 2002 Jul ;84(3):237-65.

PubMed
Lipid dependence of membrane anchoring properties and snorkeling behavior of aro...
Lipid dependence of membrane anchoring properties and snorkeling behavior of aromatic and charged residues in transmembrane peptides.
Biochemistry. 2002 Jun 11 ;41(23):7190-8.

PubMed
Patterns and correlates of generalized anxiety disorder in community samples.
Patterns and correlates of generalized anxiety disorder in community samples.
J Clin Psychiatry. 2002 ;63 Suppl 8:4-10.

PubMed
Gli and hedgehog in cancer: tumours, embryos and stem cells.
Gli and hedgehog in cancer: tumours, embryos and stem cells.
Nat Rev Cancer. 2002 May ;2(5):361-72.

PubMed
Molecular basis of neuroprotective activities of rasagiline and the anti-Alzheim...
Molecular basis of neuroprotective activities of rasagiline and the anti-Alzheimer drug TV3326 [(N-propargyl-(3R)aminoindan-5-YL)-ethyl methyl carbamate].
Cell Mol Neurobiol. 2001 Dec ;21(6):555-73.

PubMed

Your browsing activity is empty.

Activity recording is turned off.

Turn recording back on

PubMed

Result Filters

Display Settings:

Send to: