The Development of Children's Prelife Reasoning: Evidence From Two Cultures

Two studies investigated children's reasoning about their mental and bodily states during the time prior to biological conception-"prelife." By exploring prelife beliefs in 5-to 12-year-olds (N = 283) from two distinct cultures (urban Ecuadorians, rural indigenous Shuar), the studies aimed to uncover children's untutored intuitions about the essential features of persons. Results showed that with age, children judged fewer mental and bodily states to be functional during prelife. However, children from both cultures continued to privilege the functionality of certain mental states (i.e., emotions, desires) relative to bodily states (i.e., biological, psychobiological, perceptual states). Results converge with afterlife research and suggest that there is an unlearned cognitive tendency to view emotions and desires as the eternal core of personhood

Is book reading always best? Children learn and transfer complex scientific explanations from books or animations

Abstract Background Storybooks are an effective tool for teaching complex scientific mechanisms to young children when presented in child-friendly, joint-attentional contexts like read-aloud sessions. However, static storybooks are limited in their ability to convey change across time and, relative to animated storybooks, are harder to disseminate to a wide audience. This study examined second graders’ abilities to learn the deeply counterintuitive concepts of adaptation and speciation from multi-day interventions centered around two storybooks about natural selection that were either read-aloud (static) or watched on a screen (animated). The storybook sequence was progressive and first explained—in counter-essentialist and non-teleological terms—how the relative distribution of a terrestrial mammal’s trait changed over time due to behavioral shifts in their primary food resource (adaptation, book 1). It then explained how–after a sub-population of this species became geographically isolated–they evolved into an entirely different aquatic species over many generations via selection on multiple foraging-relevant traits (speciation, book 2). The animated and static versions of the storybooks used the same text and illustrations, but while the animations lacked joint-attentional context, they more dynamically depicted successive reproductive generations. Storybook and animation presentations were interspersed with five parallel talk-aloud assessment interviews over three days. Results Findings revealed substantial learning from the read-aloud static storybook sequence. They also revealed substantial learning from the animation condition with patterns suggesting that the dynamic representations of change over time particularly scaffolded acquisition of the deeply counterintuitive idea that a species can evolve into an entirely different category of species by natural selection. Conclusions The results provide much-needed optimism in a context of increasing demands for scalable solutions to promote effective learning: animated storybooks are just as good (and may even be better) than static storybooks

Is the bias for function-based explanations culturally universal? Children from China endorse teleological explanations of natural phenomena

Young children in Western cultures tend to endorse teleological (function-based) explanations broadly across many domains, even when scientifically unwarranted. For instance, in contrast to Western adults, they explicitly endorse the idea that mountains were created for climbing, just like hats were created for warmth. Is this bias a product of culture or a product of universal aspects of human cognition? In two studies, we explored whether adults and children in Mainland China, a highly secular, non-Western culture, show a bias for teleological explanations. When explaining both object properties (Experiment 1) and origins (Experiment 2), we found evidence that they do. Whereas Chinese adults restricted teleological explanations to scientifically warranted cases, Chinese children endorsed them more broadly, extending them across different kinds of natural phenomena. This bias decreased with rising grade level across first, second, and fourth grades. Overall, these data provide evidence that children&#39;s bias for teleological explanations is not solely a product of Western Abrahamic cultures. Instead, it extends to other cultures, including the East Asian secular culture of modern-day China This suggests that the bias for function-based explanations may be driven by universal aspects of human cognition. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p

A rights revolution in Europe? Regulatory and judicial approaches to nondiscrimination in insurance

In a recent decision, the European Court of Justice has ruled that insurers cannot discriminate on grounds of sex in setting premiums or determining benefits. This paper discusses the background to this decision. It asks whether we are seeing a US-style ‘rights revolution’, fuelled by judicial activism, as suggested by Dobbin et al’s hypothesis of ‘the strength of weak states’ or Kagan and Kelemen’s account of ‘adversarial legalism’. It is shown that neither of these theories captures the distinctive nature of the ECJ’s intervention. An industry-friendly policy was pursued in regulatory venues, but this was overridden by the ECJ’s interpretation of the fundamental right of equal treatment. However, it is also shown that the judicial defence of fundamental rights is a weak basis for social policy, and does not foreshadow a revolution in the development of social rights in Europe