The development of geographic categories and biases

Children and university students ( N=58) estimated the locations of major cities in North America. At age 9, a distinct home region was apparent, but no differentiation between northern US and Canadian cities. At 11, four developments were observed: Children divided North America into regions that w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental child psychology 2003-04, Vol.84 (4), p.265-285
Main Authors: Kerkman, Dennis D., Friedman, Alinda, Brown, Norman R., Stea, David, Carmichael, Alanna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Age Factors
Anchoring
Bias
Biases
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child development
Children
Cognitive Development
Comparative Analysis
Concept Formation
Developmental psychology
Differentiation
Estimation
Familiarity
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Geographic Literacy
Geography
Humans
Learning
Problem Solving
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reasoning
Space Perception - physiology
Spatial Ability
Spatial categories
Students
Thinking Skills
Young Adults
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Summary:Children and university students ( N=58) estimated the locations of major cities in North America. At age 9, a distinct home region was apparent, but no differentiation between northern US and Canadian cities. At 11, four developments were observed: Children divided North America into regions that were not based solely on national boundaries but were the same as university students’ regions; psychological border zones between regions exaggerated distances between them; children used new location information to update their estimates for all cities in a seeded region and in adjacent and nonadjacent regions; children preserved the ordinal structure of their initial location estimates for cities in their home region but relied on regional prototype locations to adjust estimates in less familiar regions. The updating methods reflect fundamentally different mechanisms. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.
ISSN:0022-0965
1096-0457
DOI:10.1016/S0022-0965(03)00028-6