EAR-20 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Essentialism, Heredity, Empiricism
Document Summary
Na ve biology: commonsensical understanding that people have internal states, and that internal states are causally related to their behaviour. Children are fascinated by living things, especially animals. We know this by how much children talk about them. By the time children are 4 or 5 years old, their fascination with living things translates into impressive knowledge, including knowledge about growth, inheritance, illness, and healing. Weakness in young children"s biological knowledge: their incorrect beliefs about which things are living and which are not. Ex: most 5 year olds believe that plants are not alive and some believe the moon & mountains are alive. They fully understand this by 7-10 years old. 3-4 year olds differentiate animates and inanimates along various dimensions. 5-6 years understand that humans = animals. 7-9 years understand that plants = living. Preschoolers understand that biological processes differ from psychological processes, and that biological processes differ from physical properties.
