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The present studies examined beliefs concerning the impact of psychosocial factors in the transmission of contagious illness, injuries, and disgust. In Studies I and 2, participants ranging from preschoolers through adults judged the likelihood that a character would get sick (or injured) after being contaminated by another individual who was either of no stated relation to the character or who was a best friend, a disliked person, or a family member. Studies 3 and 4 examined effects of psychosocial relatedness on judgments of disgust (a psychological response). Study 5 examined the influence of germs on judgments of disgust. Overall, preschoolers through 2nd graders judged that any type of relatedness decreased the possibility of contracting illness from another person. However, for disgust, preschoolers judged that negative contagion would have a more powerful effect, particularly in the presence of germs. Relatedness had no effect on judgments of injury transmission. These results suggest that young children treat the psychological and biological domains as distinct but mutually interacting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generic noun phrases ("Birds lay eggs") are important for expressing knowledge about abstract kinds. The authors hypothesized that genericity would be part of gist memory, such that young children would appropriately recall whether sentences were presented as generic or specific. In 4 experiments, pre- schoolers and college students (N = 280) heard a series of sentences in either generic form (e.g., "Bears climb trees") or specific form (e.g., "This bear climbs trees") and were asked to recall the sentences following a 4-min distractor task. Participants in all age groups correctly distinguished between generic and specific noun phrases (NPs) in their recall, even when forgetting the details of the NP form. Memory for predicate content (e.g., "climb trees") was largely unaffected by genericity, although memory for category labels (e.g., "bear") was at times better for those who heard sentences with generic wording. Overall, these results suggest that generic form is maintained in long-term memory even for young children and thus may serve as the foundation for constructing knowledge about kinds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors conducted 4 studies suggesting that children attribute different modes of transmission to genetic disorders and contagious illnesses. Study 1 presented preschoolers through 5th graders and adults with "switched-at-birth" scenarios for various disorders, Study 2 presented preschoolers with the same disorders but used contagion links in a contagion context; Studies 3 and 4 presented preschoolers and adults with novel (fictitious) illnesses to determine which cues participants would use to differentiate the modes of transmission. In the presence of kinship cues, children distinguished genetic disorders from contagious illnesses, but in the presence of contagion cues, preschoolers selectively applied contagious links primarily to contagious illnesses. With novel illnesses, preschoolers and adults inferred that permanent illnesses were more, likely to be transmitted by birth parents than by contagion. These results suggest that by the preschool years, children recognize that not all disorders are transmitted exclusively through germ contagion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]