Vitalistic Causality in Children's Biological Thought

生命论因果关系一直被认为是生物学领域的因果解释框架。在本研究中，关于这种因果关系的发展得到了以下发现。(1)小学生经常对身体诱发的身体反应做出生动的解释，而成年人则倾向于引用这种类型的解释来解释心理引发的身体反应。(2)儿童和成人在解释味觉体验的心理因素对生长和疾病等生物过程的作用时，往往会引用生命主义的概念。(3)幼儿教师和母亲在解释疾病和伤害时，往往会给出生动的解释。(4)幼儿对卫生习惯的解释也存在活力解释。这些结果表明，学龄前儿童对生物过程的认识在数量上和质量上都大大超过了他们母亲或幼儿教师的口头信息。

Vitalistic causality has been posited as a causal-explanatory framework in the domain of biology.In the present study, the following findings were obtained concerning the development of this causality. (1) Elementary school children often generated vitalistic explanations for bodily induced bodily reactions, while adults tended to refer to this type of explanations for psychogenic bodily reactions. (2) Children and adults often referred to vitalistic concepts when explaining the role of psychological factors of taste experiences on biological processes such as growth and illness. (3) Preschool teachers and mothers often offered vitalistic explanations when explaining about illnesses and injuries. (4) Vitalistic explanations were also observed among young children's explanations on hygiene habits. These results suggested that preschoolers' awareness of biological processes largely exceeded, both quantitatively and qualitatively, their mothers' or preschool teachers' verbal messages.