Children's Understanding of Society

Previous research into children's understanding of illness has mainly followed Piaget's cognitive-developmental framework. Most investigations have been concerned with children's beliefs about the causes of illness, and their factual knowledge about diseases. The empirical work presented in this thesis examined children's developing understanding of illness using the more recent nalve theory approach to children's cognitive development. Study I investigated children's illness concepts. The findings revealed age-related differences in children's understanding of illness. The individual differences in understanding which were found in Study I were investigated for possible links with parental health attitudes and behaviours, and with the children's personal experience of illness, in Study 2. However, no significant links were found. Study 3 was concerned with children's generalisation of illness from three different exemplars (child, dog and duck). It also explored possible individual differences between healthy vs chronically-ill children's responses to the three exemplars. The results showed that the children possessed different understandings of illness at different ages, and also that depending upon exemplar the children exhibited different patterns of illness generalisation. However, no individual differences in children's illness understanding Were identified as a function of their health status (healthy vs chronically-ill). Study 4 explored possible links between parental health attitudes, and the presence of health-related objects in the home, and the individual differences in the children's understanding of illness as documented in Study 3. Again, no significant links were found. Study 5 investigated whether children hold an integrated category of living things, one that includes both animals and plants, by looking at their generalisations from four different exemplars (child, dog, duck and rosebush). Age-related differences and differences depending upon exemplar were again revealed. It is concluded that these findings can be best explained by positing that children hold naYve theories of biology, and that the development of these theories does not appear to be affected by the health status of the child, parental health attitudes, or the presence of health-related objects in the child's home.