Developmental Changes in Number Personification by Elementary School Children.

Eiko Matsuda,Yoshihiro S Okazaki,Michiko Asano,Kazuhiko Yokosawa

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02214

Abstract

Children often personify non-living objects, such as puppets and stars. This attribution is considered a healthy phenomenon, which can simulate social exchange and enhance children's understanding of social relationships. In this study, we considered that the tendency of children to engage in personification could potentially be observed in abstract entities, such as numbers. We hypothesized that children tend to attribute personalities to numbers, which diminishes during the course of development. By consulting the methodology to measure ordinal linguistic personification (OLP), which is a type of synesthesia, we quantified the frequency with which child and adult populations engage in number personification. Questionnaires were completed by 151 non-synesthetic children (9–12 years old) and 55 non-synesthetic adults. Children showed a higher tendency than adults to engage in number personification, with respect to temporal consistency and the frequency of choosing meaningful answers. Additionally, children tended to assign unique and exclusive descriptions to each number from zero to nine. By synthesizing the series of analyses, we revealed the process in which number personification diminishes throughout development. In the discussion, we examined the possibility that number personification serves as a discrimination clue to aid children's comprehension of the relationships between numbers.

Highlights

A child’s conception of personality changes throughout development
In order to reveal the process by which number personification diminishes throughout development, we focused on measuring the degree to which children engage in personification of numerals zero through nine
In a different research context, the personification of numbers has been studied as ordinal linguistic personification (OLP), which is a type of synesthesia

Summary

Introduction

A child’s conception of personality changes throughout development. For instance, Piaget (1929) explained that children who are 5–12 years old tend to attribute consciousness to non-living matters. Younger children believe that all things are conscious; for instance, a child described a wall as if it was conscious (e.g., “a wall feels it is knocked down”). When they become older, they begin to think that things that can move of their own accord are conscious. A child reported that “the moon knows that it moves.”. As they continue to grow, children start to understand that only animals are conscious. Creating friendships with imaginary beings, or “imaginary companions,” is an example of how children engage in personification (Taylor and Mottweiler, 2008). Imaginary companions can either be abstract entities or physical objects, such

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Conclusion