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Children's Understanding of Psychogenic Bodily Reactions

  • THE KOREAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
  • 2006, 19(3), pp.67-88
  • Publisher : The Korean Society For Developmental Psychology
  • Research Area : Social Science > Psychological Science

정명숙 1

1꽃동네대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study examined how children from 5 to 11 years of age and adults reason about psychogenic bodily reactions, that is, physiological responses with origins in the mind(e.g., stress-induced headache). Understanding psychogenic bodily reactions requires children to integrate knowledge between the two domains of bodily response and psychology. Children and adults were asked whether various familiar psychogenic bodily reactions were possible(e.g., can someone gets a stomachache from worrying?). The results showed an age-related increase in children's understanding of psychogenic bodily reactions. While most of adults reported that psychogenic bodily reactions were possible. children from 7 to 11 years usually denied that psy chogenic bodily reactions could occur. Unlike older childre, however, the youngest children (5-year-olds) tended to accept psychogenic phenomena. The results suggest that from 7 years of age children begin to honor an ontological distinction between body and mind, while they do not accept that these domains may interact. But the results suggest that younger children do not honor the distinction yet, setting aside the possible interaction of the tow domains.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.