Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2008 Jun 1;17(3):285-299.
doi: 10.1002/icd.553.

Children's Evaluative Categories and Inductive Inferences within the Domain of Food

Simone P Nguyen  1
Affiliations

Children's Evaluative Categories and Inductive Inferences within the Domain of Food

Simone P Nguyen. Infant Child Dev. .

Abstract

Evaluative categories include items that share the same value- laden assessment. Given that these categories have not been examined extensively within the child concepts literature, the present research explored evaluative categorization and induction within the domain of food as a test case. Specifically, two studies examined the categories of healthy and junky foods in children aged 4 and 7 years. Study 1 showed that by aged 4 years, children appropriately apply the evaluative categories of healthy and junky foods to a variety of different foods. Study 2 showed that by age 4 years, children also selectively use the evaluative categories of healthy and junky foods for inductive inferences about the human body, but not for arbitrary or unrelated inferences. Taken together, these results highlight the importance of evaluative processing in young children's categorization and induction.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study 2: percentage of evaluative category selection by age.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Alvarez JM, Ruble DN, Bolger N. Trait understanding or evaluative reasoning? An analysis of children’s behavioral predictions. Child Development. 2001;72:1409–1425. - PubMed
    1. American Heart Association. [Accessed February 1 2006];Overweight in children. 2006 http://www.americanheart.org.
    1. Barsalou LW. Ad hoc categories. Memory & Cognition. 1983;11:211–227. - PubMed
    1. Barsalou LW. Deriving categories to achieve goals. In: Bower GH, editor. The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory. San Diego: Academic Press; 1991. pp. 1–64.
    1. Bigler RS, Averhart CJ, Liben LS. Race and the workforce: Occupational status, aspirations, and stereotyping among African American children. Developmental Psychology. 2003;39:572–580. - PubMed