Children's awareness of psychosomatic phenomena

9项研究考察了儿童对心身现象的认识。在研究1和研究2中，研究1和研究2询问了5、6、8和11岁组的156名儿童和50名成年人作为源于心理的身体疾病而产生心理身体反应的可能性。幼儿通常否认身体状况可能源于心理状态。研究3和研究4调查了日本成年人对心身现象的看法。30名本科生解释了为什么精神状态会导致身体结果。这些成年人没有展示一个详细和具体的心理身体反应的解释框架。他们的解释基于两个观点，第一，心灵和身体是相互关联的。第二种观点认为，身心在身体或环境中交换一些未指明的能量(生命力或压力)。研究5、6和7包括对101名从学龄前到五年级的儿童和42名成年人的采访，结果表明，即使是年幼的儿童也意识到，摄入体能对身心健康有好处，尽管他们倾向于相信自己可以通过有意完全控制情绪。幼儿在理解心身现象方面的困难可能涉及到他们将大脑融入到因果的生物力学模型中。最后，在研究8和9中，考察了经验和社会信息对儿童意识的作用。研究8表明，儿童的意识并不依赖于他们以前的心身疾病经历。在研究9中，母亲很少对心因性身体反应给出因果解释。基于这些结果，我们不能得出结论，学龄前儿童清楚地意识到心身关系的相互关系。但孩子们似乎确实有一些原始的概念能力，可以理解跨越生物学和psvcholoav的现象。

Nine studies examined children's awareness of psychosomatic phenomena.In Studies 1 and 2, one-hundred fifty-six children in 5-, 6-, 8-, and 11-year old groups, and fifty adults, were asked about the possibility of psychogenic bodily reactions as bodily ailments with origins in the mind. Young children typically denied that bodily conditions could originate in mental states.Studies 3 and 4 investigated Japanese adults' beliefs of psychosomatic phenomena. Thirty undergraduate students gave explanations for why mental states lead to bodily outcomes. These adults did not demonstrate a detailed and specific explanatory framework for psychogenic bodily reactions. Their explanations were based on two ideas, first that the mind and body are mutually related. The second idea was that mind and body exchange some unspecified energy (vital-force or stress) in the body or environment.Studies 5, 6, and 7 consisted of interviews with 101 children in preschool through fifth grade, and 42 adults, and showed that even young children noticed that taking in physical energy is good for physical and mental health, although they tended to believe they could totally control emotions by intention. Young children's difficulties in understanding psychosomatic phenomena may have involved their incorporating the mind into a bio-mechanical model of causation.Finally, in Studies 8 and 9, the role of experiences and social information on children's awareness was examined. Study 8 demonstrated that children's awareness did not depend on their previous experiences of psychosomatic diseases. Mothers in Study 9 seldom gave causal explanations for psychogenic bodily reactions.Based on these results, we cannot conclude that preschoolers have clear awareness of the mutuality of mind-body relations. But children do seem to have some primitive conceptual abilities for understanding phenomena that cross biology and psvcholoav.