The meaning of life: Animism in the classificatory skills of older adults

Seventy-five participants aged from their teens to their seventies were mea sured on a battery of measures of personality, lifestyle, intelligence, and educational background. These measures were gauged against performance on a measure of animism, in which participants judged twenty-three items (4 al ive, 19 non-living) as living or non-living. Although animism errors increa sed with age, all groups displayed animism errors, thereby contradicting Pi aget (1965). Performance is partially explained by fluid intelligence level , but is more plausibly ascribed to progressive loss of what is essentially peripheral information to non-academic people.