PSYC 335 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: 18 Months, Heredity, Magical Thinking
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Growth of Play
o Play
Activities pursued for their own sake
o Pretend play
Make-believe activities in which
children create new symbolic relations, emerges
at about 18 months of age (object substitution)
o Sociodramatic play
Activities in which children enact minidramas with other children or adults,
emerges at about 30 months and continues for many into preteen years.
o Imaginary companions
Taylor (1999) found that as many as 63% of the children she interviewed at ages
3–4 and again at 7–8 have imaginary companions at one or both ages.
63% are 3-4 and 7-8 years old
likely to be first born
Knowledge of Living Things
o Living vs. Non-living
9- and 12-month-olds understand that self-produced motion is a distinctive
characteristic of people and animals (Poulin-Dubois, 1999).
Study: Robot vs. Human
Children are fascinated with and have considerable knowledge about
living things by age 4 or 5, but they also demonstrate a variety of
immature beliefs and types of reasoning.
Although 3- and 4-year-olds are sophisticated enough to reference
invisible processes such as differentiating living and nonliving things,
children through age 5 have difficulty understanding that humans are
animals.
Understanding Biological Processes
ESSENTIALISM
The view that living things have an essence inside them that makes them the way they
are (almost like a schema)
eg. baby turtle will become a big turtle, not a dog
Inheritance
Preschoolers
Know that physical characteristics tend to be passed on from parent to offspring
Older preschoolers
Recognize that certain aspects of development are controlled by heredity rather
than environment
View that living things have an essence inside them that makes them what they
are (essentialism)
Knowledge of Growth, Illness and Healing
Preschoolers
Realize that growth is a product of internal processes
Know that plants and animals, unlike inanimate objects, have internal processes
that allow them to heal
Understand the limits of recuperative processes
Document Summary
Activities pursued for their own sake: pretend play. Make-believe activities in which children create new symbolic relations, emerges at about 18 months of age (object substitution: sociodramatic play. Activities in which children enact minidramas with other children or adults, emerges at about 30 months and continues for many into preteen years: imaginary companions. Taylor (1999) found that as many as 63% of the children she interviewed at ages. 3 4 and again at 7 8 have imaginary companions at one or both ages. 63% are 3-4 and 7-8 years old likely to be first born. Knowledge of living things: living vs. non-living. 9- and 12-month-olds understand that self-produced motion is a distinctive characteristic of people and animals (poulin-dubois, 1999). Children are fascinated with and have considerable knowledge about living things by age 4 or 5, but they also demonstrate a variety of immature beliefs and types of reasoning.
