Young Children's Use of Dolls to Represent Themselves
Smith, Catherine Marie
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/82273
Description
Title
Young Children's Use of Dolls to Represent Themselves
Author(s)
Smith, Catherine Marie
Issue Date
1999
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
DeLoache, Judy S.
Department of Study
Psychology
Discipline
Psychology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Psychology, Clinical
Language
eng
Abstract
In six studies reported here, children were asked to use the location of a sticker on one person or representation to guide their placement of a similar sticker in the corresponding location on another person or representation. This task allows for investigation of children's ability with the symbolic task faced in a clinical or forensic interview, while removing memory demands and emotional trauma. In concert with preliminary research, consistent performance demonstrated that children have a surprising level of difficulty mapping between people and dolls, but not between two dolls or two people. Additional experiments revealed that children's difficulty was due to the requirement that they reason between elements of different categories, and that the lack of categorical similarity, and not physical similarity per se seemed to be responsible. Two manipulations designed to provide support to children's reasoning, and thus potential tools for use in interviews, failed to improve the performance of very young children. Implications for practice and future directions for research are discussed.
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