The effects of three variables on children's concepts of physical causality.
- 1 September 1956
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
- Vol. 53 (2) , 191-196
- https://doi.org/10.1037/h0044090
Abstract
This study investigated the effects of 3 variables on children''s concepts of physical casuality. It was found that: (1) The nature of the causal thinking of withdrawn children is at a significantly less mature level than the causal thinking of normal children. (2) Questions about phenomena who causal agents are not accessible to direct experience yielded significantly more nonnaturalistic responses than did questions about phenomena whose causal agents are more accessible. (3) Questions worded so as to suggest the possible operation of "animistic," "supernatural," or "dynamic" forces yielded more such nonnaturalistic types of responses than questions less suggestively recorded".Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- Children's Conception of Physical Causality: A Critical SummaryThe Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1943