ABSTRACT
Children’s explanations of the origins of particular natural objects do not reveal their ideas about the origin of the world as a whole or its primary matter. No developmental research has hitherto studied cosmological reasoning in either children or adults, yet its highly speculative nature makes it a topic of psychological interest. Chapter 5 reports the main findings with British and Japanese participants in response to the questions designed to elicit their cosmological conjectures. The similar patterns of responding among children and adults from both nationalities indicate that cosmological ideas are a salient component in their explanations of the origin of the world. Contrary to the earlier reports in the literature, children’s responses imply that they have a concept of the very first or ultimate cause and that participants’ conjectures about the origin of primary matter are consistent with the main scientific and philosophical versions of the cosmological theory.
