Open AccessExploring individual differences in preschoolers’ causal stance.
Author(s) -
Aubry L. Alvarez,
Amy E. Booth
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
developmental psychology
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.318
H-Index - 213
eISSN - 1939-0599
pISSN - 0012-1649
DOI - 10.1037/dev0000085
Subject(s) - psychology , attunement , causality (physics) , developmental psychology , causal model , curiosity , cognitive psychology , causal reasoning , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , consistency (knowledge bases) , causal structure , preference , social psychology , cognition , medicine , physics , alternative medicine , geometry , mathematics , pathology , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , economics , microeconomics
Preschoolers, as a group, are highly attuned to causality, and this attunement is known to facilitate memory, learning, and problem solving. However, recent work reveals substantial individual variability in the strength of children's "causal stance," as demonstrated by their curiosity about and preference for new causal information. In this study, we explored the coherence and short-term stability of individual differences in children's causal stance. We also began to investigate the origins of this variability, focusing particularly on the potential role of mothers' explanatory talk in shaping the causal stance of their children. Two measures of causal stance correlated with each other, as well as themselves across time. Both also revealed internal consistency of response. The strength of children's causal stance also correlated with mother's responses on the same tasks and the frequency with which mothers emphasized causality during naturalistic joint activities with their children. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.