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Evidence for a unitary goal concept in 12‐month‐old infants
Author(s) -
Biro Szilvia,
Verschoor Stephan,
Coenen Lot
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01042.x
Subject(s) - psychology , attribution , unitary state , action (physics) , goal orientation , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , goal setting , social psychology , physics , quantum mechanics , political science , law
We investigated whether infants can transfer their goal attribution between situations that contain different types of information about the goal. We found that 12‐month‐olds who had attributed a goal based on the causal efficacy of a means–end action generated expectations about the actor’s action in another scenario in which the actor could choose between alternative outcomes. This finding suggests that, by 12 months, infants possess a unitary concept of goal.