Running Head: DEVELOPMENT OF FOLKBIOLOGICAL INDUCTION Cultural and Experiential Differences in the Development of Folk Biological Induction

Abstract. Carey’s (1985) book on conceptual change and the accompanying argument that children’s biology initially is organized in terms of naïve psychology has sparked a great detail of research and debate. This body of research on children’s biology has, however, been almost exclusively been based on urban, majority culture children in the US or in other industrialized nations. The thesis of this paper is that the folkbiology of urban children may be highly atypical of development because neither the culture nor everyday experience involve as an important component, plants and animals. Two experiments are reported where the participants are urban majority culture children, rural majority culture children, and rural Native American (Menominee) children. The tasks involved category-based induction and judgments about the concept of “alive. ” Each group produced a unique profile of development. Only urban children showed evidence for early anthropocentrism, suggesting that the co-mingling of psychology and biology may be a product of an impoverished experience with and exposure to nature. Even the youngest rural children generalized in terms of biological affinity. In addition, all ages of Native American children and the older rural majority culture children (unlike urban children) gave clear evidence of ecological reasoning. These results showing that both culture and expertise (exposure to nature) play a role in the development of folkbiological thought among children underline the precariousness of basing theories of conceptual development solely on studies of urban, majority culture children