Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T12:06:20.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Are all distances created equal? Insights from developmental psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2020

Bronwyn O'Brien
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, CanadaK1N 6N5. bobri082@uottawa.ca jrutt@uottawa.ca atance@uottawa.ca http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/ccll/eng/
Joshua L. Rutt
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, CanadaK1N 6N5. bobri082@uottawa.ca jrutt@uottawa.ca atance@uottawa.ca http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/ccll/eng/
Cristina M. Atance
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, CanadaK1N 6N5. bobri082@uottawa.ca jrutt@uottawa.ca atance@uottawa.ca http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/ccll/eng/

Abstract

Gilead et al.'s theory presupposes that traversing temporal, spatial, social, and hypothetical distances are largely interchangeable acts of mental travel that co-occur in human ontogeny. Yet, this claim is at odds with recent developmental data suggesting that children's reasoning is differentially affected by the dimension which they must traverse, and that different representational abilities underlie travel across different dimensions.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bélanger, M. J., Atance, C. M., Varghese, A. L., Nguyen, V. & Vendetti, C. (2014) What will I like best when I'm all grown up? Preschoolers’ understanding of future preferences. Child Development 85(6):2419–31. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12282.Google Scholar
Bowman-Smith, C. K., Shtulman, A. & Friedman, O. (2019) Distant lands make for distant possibilities: Children view improbable events as more possible in far-away locations. Developmental Psychology 55:722–28. doi: 10.1037/dev0000661.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coughlin, C., Robins, R. W. & Ghetti, S. (2019) Development of episodic prospection: Factors underlying improvements in middle and late childhood. Child Development 90(4):1109–22. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13001.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hanson, L. K., Atance, C. M. & Paluck, S. W. (2014) Is thinking about the future related to theory of mind and executive function? Not in preschoolers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 128:120–37. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.07.006.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, W. S. & Atance, C. M. (2016) The effect of psychological distance on children's reasoning about future preferences. PLOS ONE 11(10):e0164382. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0164382.Google ScholarPubMed
Prencipe, A. & Zelazo, P. D. (2005) Development of affective decision making for self and other: Evidence for the integration of first-and third-person perspectives. Psychological Science 16:501505. doi: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.01564.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Renoult, L., Kopp, L., Davidson, P. S. R., Taler, V. & Atance, C. M. (2016) You'll change more than I will: Adults’ predictions about their own and others’ future preferences. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 69:299309. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2015.1046463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rutt, J. L., O'Brien, B. M. & Atance, C. M. (2019) Spatial distance and reasoning about the future. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD.Google Scholar
White, R. E. & Carlson, S. M. (2016) What would Batman do? Self-distancing improves executive function in young children. Developmental Science 19(3):419–26. doi: 10.1111/desc.12314.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed