Failure supports 3- to 6-year-old children’s mechanistic exploration

Abstract

This study investigated whether contexts of failure improve preschool children’s mechanistic reasoning. We showed 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 55, M = 5;2) how to make an unfamiliar toy work to play a goal-directed game. Between conditions we manipulated children’s success in making the toy work by surreptitiously turning a hidden causal switch ON (Success) or OFF (Failure) before they interacted with the toy. We then measured children’s exploration of the toy, explanations for how the toy worked, and generalizations about how a new functioning toy would work. Children in the Failure condition were more likely to discover the hidden causal mechanism and talk about it in their explanations about the toy. Younger children spent more time exploring the toy than older children but were not more likely to discover the hidden causal mechanism. The findings are discussed as they relate to the emergence of spontaneous mechanistic exploration over development, how this then supports mechanistic reasoning, and the role of failure in children’s early causal reasoning.