Chapter 7. Magical Thinking

Synopsis

Human Development Video Activity
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MAGICAL THINKING

Estimated Completion Time:

Approximately 5 minutes.

Synopsis:

Before the age of 6 or so, children often exhibit magical thinking, including a belief in the casual power of wishing. The following clips, from the laboratory of Jacqui Woolley, demonstrate age differences in this belief.

Video

The clips are from a procedure in which an experimenter shows a child a series of boxes, each which either contains an object or is empty. The experimenter then makes a wish, either for an object to disappear from a box or for a specific object to appear in an empty box, and asks the child whether he or she believes the wish has worked. In the trials shown here, the responses of the subjects (a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old) are typical of children their age.

Essay Question

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Question 7.1

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Preschoolers seem more tentative in their belief in the power of wishing when their acting upon that belief could have embarrassing consequences for them. For example, when a third party comes into the laboratory room and asks to borrow an object the child has just asserted has been wished into a box, many children give no indication that the requested object is in the box.

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