Naive Theorien im kindlichen Denken
Abstract
Zusammenfassung. Die Beschäftigung mit dem intuitiven Wissen von Kindern hat in den letzten Jahren in der kognitiven Entwicklungspsychologie zunehmend an Bedeutung gewonnen. Der vorliegende Artikel gibt einen Überblick über die Fülle empirischer Ergebnisse zur kindlichen Wissensentwicklung in den drei großen Inhaltsbereichen naive Physik, naive Biologie und naive Psychologie. Anhand einschlägiger Befunde wird erörtert, ob das Wissen der Kinder im jeweiligen Inhaltsbereich den Charakter einer Theorie besitzt. Als Kriterium dienen dabei die Fragen, (a) ob Kinder die für die jeweilige Wissensdomäne relevanten Begriffe eindeutig definieren und ontologische Unterscheidungen treffen können und (b) ob sie domänenspezifische Kausalzusammenhänge begreifen. Die heterogene Befundlage sowie differierende Interpretationen der vorliegenden Befunde in der Literatur lassen eine eindeutige Beantwortung der gestellten Fragen bisweilen nicht zu. Dennoch haben wir der Erforschung naiver kindlicher Theorien einen vertieften Einblick in das Weltbild und die teils erstaunlichen Kompetenzen von Säuglingen, Vor- und Grundschulkindern zu verdanken.
Abstract. Research on intuitive theories of children has become increasingly important in cognitive developmental psychology. The following article provides an overview of empirical results on children's knowledge development in the three major domains, intuitive physics, biology, and psychology. Based on these findings, we discuss whether the knowledge of children in the different domains is properly viewed as a theory. The relevant criteria for answering this question are as follows: (a) Are children able to precisely define and differentiate important domain-specific ontological entities? and (b) Do they have an idea of the domain-specific causal explanatory framework? Heterogeneous empirical results and differing interpretations make answering difficult. Nevertheless, the research on intuitive theories has deepened our insight into the world view and competencies of infants, pre- and gradeschoolers.
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