Busch Justin T A, Watson-Jones Rachel E, Legare Cristine H
The University of Texas at Austin, USA.
Evol Hum Behav. 2018 May;39(3):310-319. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.02.004. Epub 2018 Feb 14.
Two studies examined children's reasoning about biological kinds in populations that vary in formal education and direct experience with the natural world, a Western (urban U.S.) and a Non-Western population (Tanna, Vanuatu). Study 1 examined children's concepts of ecological relatedness between species ( = 97, 5-13- year-olds). U.S. children provided more taxonomic explanations than Ni-Vanuatu children, who provided more ecological, physiological, and utility explanations than U.S. children. Ecological explanations were most common overall and more common among older than younger children across cultures. In Study 2, children (=106, 6-11-year-olds) sorted pictures of natural kinds into groups. U.S. children were more likely than Ni-Vanuatu children to categorize a human as an animal and the tendency to group a human with other animals increased with age in the U.S. Despite substantial differences in cultural, educational, and ecological input, children in both populations privileged ecological reasoning. In contrast, taxonomic reasoning was more variable between populations, which may reflect differences in experience with formal education.
两项研究考察了不同正规教育程度以及与自然世界直接接触程度的人群中的儿童对生物种类的推理，其中一组是西方人群（美国城市儿童），另一组是非西方人群（瓦努阿图塔纳岛儿童）。研究1考察了儿童对物种间生态关联性的概念（97名5至13岁儿童）。美国儿童给出的分类学解释比瓦努阿图儿童更多，而瓦努阿图儿童给出的生态、生理和实用功能方面的解释比美国儿童更多。总体而言，生态方面的解释最为常见，且在所有文化中，年龄较大儿童比年龄较小儿童给出的此类解释更为常见。在研究2中，儿童（106名6至11岁儿童）将自然种类的图片进行分组。美国儿童比瓦努阿图儿童更倾向于将人类归类为动物，并且在美国，将人类与其他动物归为一组的倾向随年龄增长而增加。尽管在文化、教育和生态方面的输入存在显著差异，但两组人群中的儿童都倾向于生态推理。相比之下，分类学推理在不同人群中差异更大，这可能反映出正规教育经历的差异。
