Exploring Individual Differences in Preschoolers' Causal Stance.

Preschoolers, as a group, are highly attuned to causality, and this attunement is known to facilitate memory, learning, and problem solving. However, recent work reveals substantial individual variability in the strength of children's "causal stance," as demonstrated by their curiosity about and pre...

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Published in:Developmental Psychology Vol. 52; no. 3; pp. 411 - 423
Main Authors: Alvarez, Aubry, Booth, Amy E.
Format: Article
Published: American Psychological Association Mar2016
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Mar2016
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      pub: American Psychological Association
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        10.1037/dev0000085
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        atl: Exploring Individual Differences in Preschoolers' Causal Stance.
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        au:
          Alvarez, Aubry
          Booth, Amy E.
        affil:
          Northwestern University
          University of Texas at Austin
      su:
        Attribution (Social psychology)
        Child development
        Learning
        Memory
        Mothers
        Problem solving
        Descriptive statistics
      sug:
        subj:
          Attribution (Social psychology)
          Child development
          Learning
          Memory
          Mothers
          Problem solving
          Descriptive statistics
      keyword:
        causal information
        explanatory talk
        preschoolers
        causal information
        explanatory talk
        preschoolers
      ab: Preschoolers, as a group, are highly attuned to causality, and this attunement is known to facilitate memory, learning, and problem solving. However, recent work reveals substantial individual variability in the strength of children's "causal stance," as demonstrated by their curiosity about and preference for new causal information. In this study, we explored the coherence and short-term stability of individual differences in children's causal stance. We also began to investigate the origins of this variability, focusing particularly on the potential role of mothers' explanatory talk in shaping the causal stance of their children. Two measures of causal stance correlated with each other, as well as themselves across time. Both also revealed internal consistency of response. The strength of children's causal stance also correlated with mother's responses on the same tasks and the frequency with which mothers emphasized causality during naturalistic joint activities with their children. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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