Jonathan D. Lane

Children's understanding of ordinary and extraordinary minds

How and when do children develop an understanding of extraordinary mental capacities? The current study tested 56 preschoolers on false-belief and knowledge-ignorance tasks about the mental states of contrasting agents--some agents were ordinary humans, some had exceptional perceptual capacities, and others possessed extraordinary mental capacities. Results indicated that, in contrast to younger and older peers, children within a specific age range reliably attributed fallible, human-like capacities to ordinary humans and to several special agents (including God) for both tasks. These data lend critical support to an anthropomorphism hypothesis--which holds that childrens understanding of extraordinary minds is derived from their everyday intuitive psychology--and reconcile disparities between the findings of other studies on childrens understanding of extraordinary minds.

Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding Predict Moral Development in Early Childhood

The current study utilized longitudinal data to investigate how theory of mind (ToM) and emotion understanding (EU) concurrently and prospectively predicted young childrens moral reasoning and decision making. One hundred twenty-eight children were assessed on measures of ToM and EU at 3.5 and 5.5 years of age. At 5.5 years, children were also assessed on the quality of moral reasoning and decision making they used to negotiate prosocial moral dilemmas, in which the needs of a story protagonist conflict with the needs of another story character. More sophisticated EU predicted greater use of physical- and material-needs reasoning, and a more advanced ToM predicted greater use of psychological-needs reasoning. Most intriguing, ToM and EU jointly predicted greater use of higher-level acceptance-authority reasoning, which is likely a product of childrens increasing appreciation for the knowledge held by trusted adults and childrens desire to behave in accordance with social expectations.

Observant, Nonaggressive Temperament Predicts Theory of Mind Development

Temperament dimensions influence childrens approach to and participation in social interactive experiences which reflect and impact childrens social understandings. Therefore, temperament differences might substantially impact theory of mind development in early childhood. Using longitudinal data, we report that certain early temperament characteristics (at age 3)--lack of aggressiveness, a shy-withdrawn stance to social interaction, and social-perceptual sensitivity--predict childrens more advanced theory-of-mind understanding two years later. The findings contribute to our understanding of how theory of mind develops in the formative preschool period; they may also inform debates as to the evolutionary origins of theory of mind.

Anthropomorphizing Science: How Does It Affect the Development of Evolutionary Concepts?

Despite the ubiquitous use of anthropomorphic language to describe biological change in both educational settings and popular science, little is known about how anthropomorphic language influences children’s understanding of evolutionary concepts. In an experimental study, we assessed whether the language used to convey evolutionary concepts influences children’s (5- to 12-year-olds; N = 88) understanding of evolutionary change. Language was manipulated by using three types of narrative, each describing animals’ biological change: (a) need-based narratives, which referenced animals’ basic survival needs; (b) desire-based or anthropomorphic narratives, which referenced animals’ mental states; and (c) scientifically accurate natural selection narratives. Results indicate that the language used to describe evolutionary change influenced children’s endorsement of and use of evolutionary concepts when interpreting that change. Narratives using anthropomorphic language were least likely to facilitate a scientifically accurate interpretation. In contrast, need-based and natural selection language had similar and positive effects, which suggests that need-based reasoning might provide a conceptual scaffold to an evolutionary explanation of biological origins. In sum, the language used to teach evolutionary change impacts conceptual understanding in children and has important pedagogical implications for science education.

Developmental precursors of young school-age children's hostile attribution bias

This prospective longitudinal study provides evidence of preschool-age precursors of hostile attribution bias in young school-age children, a topic that has received little empirical attention. We examined multiple risk domains, including laboratory and observational assessments of childrens social-cognition, general cognitive functioning, effortful control, and peer aggression. Preschoolers (N = 231) with a more advanced theory-of-mind, better emotion understanding, and higher IQ made fewer hostile attributions of intent in the early school years. Further exploration of these significant predictors revealed that only certain components of these capacities (i.e., nonstereotypical emotion understanding, false-belief explanation, and verbal IQ) were robust predictors of a hostile attribution bias in young school-age children and were especially strong predictors among children with more advanced effortful control. These relations were prospective in nature-the effects of preschool variables persisted after accounting for similar variables at school age. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for future research and prevention.

Confronting, Representing, and Believing Counterintuitive Concepts Navigating the Natural and the Supernatural

Recent research shows that even preschoolers are skeptical; they frequently reject claims from other people when the claims conflict with their own perceptions and concepts. Yet, despite their skepticism, both children and adults come to believe in a variety of phenomena that defy their first-hand perceptions and intuitive conceptions of the world. In this review, we explore how children and adults acquire such concepts. We describe how a similar developmental process underlies mental representation of both the natural and the supernatural world, and we detail this process for two prominent supernatural counterintuitive ideas—God and the afterlife. In doing so, we highlight the fact that conceptual development does not always move in the direction of greater empirical truth, as described within naturalistic domains. We consider factors that likely help overcome skepticism and, in doing so, promote belief in counterintuitive phenomena. These factors include qualities of the learners, aspects of the context, qualities of the informants, and qualities of the information.

Relations between Temperament and Theory of Mind Development in the United States and China: Biological and Behavioral Correlates of Preschoolers' False-Belief Understanding.

The emotional reactivity hypothesis holds that, over the course of phylogeny, the selection of animals with less reactive temperaments supported the development of sophisticated social-cognitive skills in several species, including humans (Hare, 2007). In the ontogenetic human case, an emotional reactivity hypothesis predicts that children with less reactive temperaments will reach certain milestones in theory-of-mind (ToM) development more quickly. We examined relations between temperament and false-belief understanding in 102 preschool-age children from China and the United States. Temperament was measured via parental ratings of behavior as well as with physiological measures of childrens reactivity (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis reactivity gauged via salivary cortisol). In accord with an emotional reactivity hypothesis, children with certain reactive temperaments--specifically, those who were more aggressive and those who were both socially withdrawn and physiologically reactive--evidenced poorer social-cognition. However, our findings also force amendment to the ontogenetic emotional reactivity hypothesis. For the majority of children in both countries, physiological reactivity predicted more advanced ToM, perhaps by facilitating social engagement and attention to social stimuli. Moreover, children who were withdrawn from social interaction yet nonreactive, especially Chinese children of this temperament, evidenced advanced ToM. Thus, some forms of social disengagement may foster social-cognitive development in certain sociocultural contexts.

Contradictory or Complementary? Creationist and Evolutionist Explanations of the Origin(s) of Species.

Almost half of the US public rejects the idea that humans originated via evolution rather than by supernatural design. Moreover, studies demonstrate that even biology teachers have difficulty teaching their students about evolution, often including creationist explanations as well. A typical response to such findings is the argument that greater exposure to evolutionary theory would eliminate these unscientific alternatives. However, creationist ideas are not easily extinguished. Even after repeated exposure to evolutionary concepts, creationist ideas are more likely to be incorporated into hybrid frameworks along with evolutionary ideas, rather than completely rejected. Thus, members of the public often find these ideas complementary rather than contradictory. In this review, we apply dual-process theory to examine individuals’ understandings of the origins of species. We describe cognitive biases that operate at the intuitive-autonomous level (system 1), some of which, we argue, anchor belief in supernatural design, and others of which potentially anchor evolutionary ideas. At the other end of the continuum, reflective and abstract reasoning (system 2) processes are apparent in both scientific and theological explanations of origins. We conclude that presenting supernatural and natural explanations of biological origins as contradictory belies the way they function in everyday reasoning. By understanding the theological and the scientific arguments as well as the way most people intuitively reason about such existential questions, teachers might be better prepared to deal with these issues in the classroom.

Approaching an understanding of omniscience from the preschool years to early adulthood

Individuals in many cultures believe in omniscient (all-knowing) beings, but everyday representations of omniscience have rarely been studied. To understand the nature of such representations requires knowing how they develop. Two studies examined the breadth of knowledge (i.e., types of knowledge) and depth of knowledge (i.e., amount of knowledge within domains) that preschoolers, elementary-school children, and adults (N = 180) attributed to an all-knowing being. Preschoolers often reported that an omniscient mind would lack many types of knowledge, and they completely failed to understand the depth of omniscient knowledge. With increasing age, children approached an understanding of omniscience-attributing broader and deeper knowledge to an omniscient agent-but only adults firmly understood the depth of omniscient knowledge. We identify socio-cultural and cognitive factors that correlate with childrens understandings of omniscience. Findings demonstrate that childhood representations of fallible, limited, human minds both make possible and constrain developing representations of radically non-human minds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's imagination and belief: Prone to flights of fancy or grounded in reality?

Children ranging from 4 to 8years (n=39) reported whether they could imagine various improbable phenomena (e.g., a person making onion juice) as well as various impossible phenomena (e.g., a person turning an onion into a banana) and then described what they imagined. In their descriptions, children mentioned ordinary causes much more often than extraordinary causes. Descriptions of such ordinary causes were provided more often in relation to improbable (rather than impossible) phenomena. Following these imaginative efforts, children judged if each phenomenon could really happen. To check whether these reality judgments were affected by childrens attempts to imagine, a control group (n=39) made identical reality judgments but were not first prompted to imagine each phenomenon. Children across the age range judged that impossible phenomena cannot really happen but, with increasing age, judged that improbable phenomena can happen. This pattern emerged in both the imagination and control groups; thus simply prompting children to imagine did not alter their reality judgments. However, within the imagination group, judgments that phenomena can really happen were associated with childrens claims to have successfully imagined the phenomena and with certain characteristics of their descriptions: imagining ordinary causes and imagining phenomena obtain. Results highlight close links between imagination and reality judgments in childhood. Contrary to the notion that young children have a rich imagination that readily defies reality, results indicate that their imagination is grounded in reality, as are their beliefs.