ABSTRACT
In this study of people ranging from six to over sixty-five years of age, a high frequency of animistic responses was found in all ages examined. While a significant age effect was noted in the ability to categorize animate objects accurately, animistic responding was generally unrelated to logical classification ability or to analytic cognitive style. For eleven- to thirteen-year-olds, however, a significant relationship between animism and both cognitive style and classification ability existed. An interpretation of the results which found high levels of animistic thinking beyond adolescence does not support Piagetian theory. Rather, adults may respond animistically because of emotional attachments which they have formed to a certain meaningful physical objects.
Subject(s)
Concept Formation , Ego , Reality Testing , Adolescent , Adult , Age Factors , Aged , Child , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , WisconsinABSTRACT
Performance on Piagetian logical concept tasks, standardized intellectual measures, and measures of memory ability, was assessed cross-sectionally. One-hundred-sixty individuals participated. Differential item difficulty patterns were noted on the Piagetian tasks. Curvilinear trends were evident for class inclusion, combinatorial reasoning, and conservation of surface area. Factorial analyses of variance revealed significant chronological age main effects for all tasks except transitivity of weight. Covariance analyses indicated that educational level is generally more closely related to logical concept performance than is chronological age. Dimensional analyses revealed separate factors for general intelligence, classification, relations, and conservation. The youngest and oldest age groups has similar factor patterns; these differed from those of the mature participants.
