Abstract
Animism and Child Psychology—It is often maintained that the personifications of inanimate objects which are characteristic of the thought of the child in civilisation belong to a stage of mental development corresponding to that which is responsible for the animistic beliefs of peoples of lower culture. Ignoring the refinements of animistic belief, it may be said broadly that the reaction of the civilised child, in speaking of ‘the naughty table’ against which it has hurt its head, is regarded as comparable with the belief of the savage who holds that some spiritual force or power animates a block of wood or stone, for example, and may act, or be influenced to act, for good or ill. It has, therefore, been only reason able to conclude that the same attitude of mind would be found, possibly even in an intensified form, in savage childhood; but a recent investigation raises some doubt as to the validity of the whole argument. Miss Margaret Mead has recorded the results of an investigation among the children of the Manus people of Admiralty Islands, New Guinea, with special reference to this point (J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst., 62, pt. 1). Her investigation was conducted both by observation while the children were engaged in free activities, and by question. She found no evidence of animistic personification, although some of her experiments were directly provocative, had there been any tendency in this direction. The drifting of a canoe was attributed not to the innate perversity of the canoe, but to the carelessness of the person who failed to tie it up properly. The evidence, it is true, is drawn from a single people, among whom indeed conditions may be peculiar; but it suggests to Miss Mead, and will suggest to others, the need for a careful reconsideration of this theory of child psychology.
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Research Items. Nature 130, 894–896 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130894a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130894a0