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Effects of Context on Judgments Concerning the Reality Status of Novel Entities
Author(s) -
Woolley Jacqueline D.,
Van Reet Jennifer
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00973.x
Subject(s) - psychology , context (archaeology) , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , cognitive science , paleontology , biology
Three studies examined the effects of context on decisions about the reality status of novel entities. In Experiment 1 (144, 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds), participants less often claimed that novel entities were real when they were introduced in a fantastical than in a scientific context. Experiment 2 (61, 4‐ to 5‐year‐olds) revealed that defining novel entities with reference to scientific entities had a stronger effect on reality status judgments than did hearing scientifically oriented stories before encountering the novel entities. The results from Experiment 3 (192, 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds) indicated that definitions that support inferences facilitate reality status judgments more than do definitions that simply associate novel and familiar entities. These findings demonstrate that children share with adults an important means of assessing reality status.