title: Tell me about Pangolins! Evidence that children are motivated to learn about kinds.
abstract: We propose that conceptual development is facilitated by an early emerging bias that leads children to privilege learning about kinds of things in the world (e.g., dogs, chairs). Three studies (N = 144) provided evidence consistent with this proposal. When given a choice between finding out about a kind or about a concrete individual from that kind, 4- and 5-year-olds preferred to find out about the kind. This preference was broad in scope, extending to both familiar (Experiment 3) and unfamiliar (Experiments 1 and 2) kinds. Children's desire to learn about kinds was also expressed flexibly rather than being automatically cued by superficial features of the task: Children who talked to an ostensibly ignorant experimenter did not favor the facts about kinds (Experiments 1 and 3). Moreover, children's preference was specific to kinds rather than extending to plural sets more generally: Children who chose between facts about a single individual and facts about multiple individuals did not favor the latter (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that conceptual development may be driven in part by a heightened motivation to learn about kinds.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
authors: Andrei
authors: A
authors: Cimpian
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
authors: JoAnn J
authors: JJ
authors: Park
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation