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. 2023 Jun:235:105413.
doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105413. Epub 2023 Feb 21.

"It kinda has like a mind": Children's and parents' beliefs concerning viral disease transmission for COVID-19 and the common cold

Danielle Labotka  1 , Susan A Gelman  2
Affiliations

"It kinda has like a mind": Children's and parents' beliefs concerning viral disease transmission for COVID-19 and the common cold

Danielle Labotka et al. Cognition. 2023 Jun.

Abstract

How people reason about disease transmission is central to their commonsense theories, scientific literacy, and adherence to public health guidelines. This study provided an in-depth assessment of U.S. children's (ages 5-12, N = 180) and their parents' (N = 125) understanding of viral transmission of COVID-19 and the common cold, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary aim was to discover children's causal models of viral transmission, by asking them to predict and explain counter-intuitive outcomes (e.g., asymptomatic disease, symptom delay) and processes that cannot be directly observed (e.g., viral replication, how vaccines work). A secondary aim was to explore parental factors that might contribute to children's understanding. Although even the youngest children understood germs as disease-causing and were highly knowledgeable about certain behaviors that transmit or block viral disease (e.g., sneezing, mask-wearing), they generally failed to appreciate the processes that play out over time within the body. Overall, children appeared to rely on two competing mental models of viruses: one in which viruses operate strictly via mechanical processes (movement through space), and one in which viruses are small living creatures, able to grow in size and to move by themselves. These results suggest that distinct causal frameworks co-exist in children's understanding. A challenge for the future is how to teach children about illness as a biological process without also fostering inappropriate animism or anthropomorphism of viruses.

Keywords: Causal reasoning; Cognitive development; Illness understanding; Naive biology; Naive theories.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Children's accuracy composite scores as a function of Age and Condition. Shaded portions indicate SEs.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Accuracy composite as a function of age group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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