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Understanding Children's Curiosityand Exploration through the Lenses ofLewin's Field Theory: On Developing anAppraisal FrameworkAmy Chak aa Department of Applied Social Sciences , The Hong KongPolytechnic University , Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong KongPublished online: 17 Sep 2010.

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Early Child Development and Care, 2002, Vol. 172(1), pp. 77–87

Understanding Children’s Curiosity andExploration through the Lenses of Lewin’sField Theory: on Developing an AppraisalFramework

AMY CHAK

Department of Applied Social Sciences,The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom,Kowloon, Hong Kong

(Received 24 May 2001)

Curiosity as a motivational force is often linked with knowledge acquisition. Adults are important mediatorsto motivate children’s curiosity and exploration, and their foremost task is to understand the child. This articleproposes to use Kurt Lewin’s field theory as a framework to appraise children’s momentary state of curiosityand exploratory behavior. Taking a dynamic view of child-environment interaction, this framework ischaracterized by a micro level process analysis. Two levels of analysis: child-stimulus situation and child-stimulus-adult situation are discussed. Adult’s sensitivity to the child’s perspective is emphasized. Theproposed framework argues that a parent can be a source of barrier in hindering a child’s exploration or afacilitator to remove barriers.

Key words: curiosity and exploration, adult-child interaction, Kurt Lewin, field theory, person-environmentdynamics

INTRODUCTION

In this information age, when older children can easily access an overwhelming load of in-

formation and younger children are not lacking in sources of stimulation, we may expect that

children have no difficulty in acquiring knowledge. The underlying assumption is that given

the opportunity children will explore on their own. What role do adults play in this knowledge

acquisition process? Curiosity is a motivational force that is linked with knowledge acqui-

sition. However, fleeting curiosity may result in the acquisition of scattered information but

may not promote systematic investigation. Adults can be mediators to motivate children to

sustain their curiosity and exploration to become more focused in pursuing their interests.

Curiosity as a motivational force and exploration as its behavioral manifestation are essen-

tially intertwined. Although curiosity is an intense motivation toward exploration of novelty,

its intensity usually fades away after a period of exploration. Presuming that the mastery of

thematic epistemic knowledge requires continuous acquisition of information around a

theme, then how can one harness this intense motivation to achieve such mastery?1

ISSN 0300-4430 print; ISSN 1476-8275 online # 2002 Taylor & Francis LtdDOI: 10.1080=03004430290000753

Corresponding author: E-mail: amy.chak@polyu.edu.hk1Berlyne (1960, 1978) had identified various dimensions of curiosity: perceptual and epistemic; diverse and

specific. This paper is mainly interested in specific curiosity, a desire for a particular piece of information, as amotivation for the development of interests and in the acquisition of epistemic knowledge.

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Curiosity’s relation to continuous knowledge acquisition may lie in one’s ability to sustain

this motivation and subsequently to develop short term attractions into long term interests.

Before advancing into possible interventions, a mediator’s foremost task is to understand the

child. This paper proposes to use Kurt Lewin’s field theory as a framework to appraise

children’s momentary state of curiosity and exploratory behavior.

Curiosity is often described as a conspicuous characteristic in children. Whether a child

decides to engage with a stimulus depends on how attractive it is to him or her. Novelty,

complexity, ambiguity, incongruity are some key attributes of a stimulus which are likely to

arouse curiosity (Berlyne, 1960, 1978). However, curiosity or internal motivation alone is not

enough to ensure action or exploration. Affective and social factors also affect one’s ex-

ploratory behavior. Anxiety is a known psychological force which hinders exploration

(Russell, 1973; Voss & Keller, 1983). A stimulus has an optimal range of attractiveness to a

person, while a weak stimulus results in boredom, an extremely strong stimulus which may

be too novel or complex, arouses anxiety or frustration and instead of exploration can lead to

withdrawal. Attachment theory asserts that a secure parental base provides a child with the

confidence needed to meet the challenges of exploration (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991).

Moreover, children have relatively little control over their environment and they are highly

dependent on adults to provide sources of stimulation. As mediators in keeping children’s

curiosity alive and in enhancing their quality of exploration, adults need to attend simulta-

neously to children’s cognitive, affect, social states of curiosity and exploration. Further,

individual differences are manifested through stable characteristics but also vary across

specific situations. In the state-trait debate on the characteristics of curiosity, Boyle (1983)

argued for an interactional approach. He summarized that triggering curiosity in a particular

situation depends largely on cognitive appraisal of the stimulus influenced by trait char-

acteristics. Thus an appraisal framework on a child’s curiosity and exploratory behavior has

to be broad enough to encompass a child’s cognitive and affective characteristics in a social

environment, manifested in specific situations.

There is already a rich pool of theoretical knowledge and research findings accumulated on

curiosity and exploration.2 However, this information needs to be organized in a way which is

helpful to understand the characteristics of an individual child at a particular situation. While

researchers face the challenge of disseminating research information to practitioners and to

engage them in dialogue, practitioners also have difficulty in bringing the overwhelming pool

of research information together to analyze a person’s momentary situation. Although re-

search findings, usually presented at the aggregated level and abstracted in a timeless manner,

provide essential and indispensable background information for such analysis, they are

nonetheless difficult to translate to a person-specific momentary situation. Revisiting Lewin’s

field theory can be of value as it may provide this essential link. Already in 1946, he de-

scribed that ‘‘there is already a wealth of accumulated facts concerning development,

personality . . . these data will have to be linked in such a way that they become applicable to

a particular person at a particular time’’ (Lewin, 1951=1997; p.337).

AN OVERVIEW OF LEWIN’S FIELD THEORY

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) and his contribution through field theory is perhaps more well

known in social psychology than in developmental and child psychology. In fact his first

recognition by American psychologists stemmed from his 1929 film, a case analysis of child-

2This paper will not include a literature review on curiosity and exploration. Key references on this theme include:Berlyne (1960, 1978), Voss & Keller (1983), Goerlitz & Wohlwill (1987), Keller, Schneider & Henderson (1994).

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environment interaction. Through an 18-month-old’s attempt to sit onto a stone, Lewin illu-

strated the use of topological principles, an early conception of field theory (Marrow, 1969).

Deviating from common conceptions of ‘‘theory’’, Lewin characterized field theory as a

‘‘method of analyzing causal relations and of building scientific constructs’’ (Lewin,

1951=1997; p.201). He developed a system of topological concepts which are broad enough

to represent psychological situations encompassing behaviors, emotions, thoughts process,

values and social relationships (Lewin, 1936).3 Such concepts ‘‘can represent these processes

not as single isolated facts but as expression of a concrete situation involving a definite

person in a definite condition’’ (Lewin, 1936; p.6). Lewin argued that ‘‘these few concepts,

used as ‘elements of construction’, permit the analytical treatment and ‘genetic definition’ of

a vast realm of qualitative phenomena and qualitative problems in a concrete fashion’ (Lewin,

1951=1997; p.193). Lewin had used the field-theoretical approach to explain concepts such

as frustration, level of aspiration, regression (Lewin, 1999). He also used field theory to

explain the dynamics of reward and punishment from the child’s perspective and described

the adult’s position as a power field (Lewin, 1935). This paper aims at a practical application

of field theory to understand children’s curiosity and exploration. I will discuss a key con-

struct of field theory: life space (total situation), and several of its features: the principle of

contemporaneity, psychological perspective, which provide an essential background to un-

derstand the adoption of field theory made in this paper.

Following the tradition of Gestalt psychology, a central idea of field theory is that ‘‘be-

havior has to be derived from a totality of co-existing facts’’ (Lewin, 1951=1997; p.187),

where they are mutually interdependent. Therefore a psychological situation must be ana-

lyzed as a whole. The total situation is the person’s life space, whereby the environment and

the person have to considered as one constellation of interdependent factors. Specifically

‘‘the effect of a given stimulus depends upon the stimulus constellation and upon the state of

the particular person at that time’’ (Lewin, 1951=1997; p.337). A person’s life space can be

differentiated into two levels: general life situation and momentary situation. One’s general

life situation encompasses a broader sphere of, for example, one’s experience and disposition.

It is more constant and serves as background which affects the state of the person and thus

the reactions in the momentary situation, and such influence vary in different momentary

situations (Lewin, 1936). Lewin emphasized the significance of the momentary situation,

where action takes place, over the general life situation.

Lewin’s principle of contemporaneity emphasized that only the present situation can in-

fluence present events. It follows that ‘‘any behavior or any change in a psychological field

depends only upon the psychological field at that time’’ (Lewin, 1951=1997; p.201).4 Past

and future time dimensions, such as one’s experiences, goals and expectations, are seen in the

context of the present situation. The present psychological field views, in which action takes

place, contains also simultaneously one’s past and future perceptions. This time perspective is

continually changing (Lewin, 1951=1997).

By the psychological perspective, Lewin meant that a situation must be understood ‘‘in the

way in which it exists for the person at that time’’ (Lewin, 1951=1997; p.213). He illustrated

that a teacher will not succeed in giving proper guidance to a child without learning to

understand the psychological world in which the individual child lives. Lewin further stated

3Lewin (1936, 1951=1997) argued that he used topology as a conceptual tool but not for the mathematization ofpsychology. Based on topological concepts (e.g., vectors, paths, space), field concepts (e.g., life space, field force,region, valence, boundary, barrier, conflict) were derived, which allows for representation of dynamic psychologicalprocesses.

4The length of time of a psychological event as a unit of analysis can be defined in a microscopic as well as amacroscopic level. The determination of the length of time depends upon the scope of the situation. The moremacroscopic the situation is, the longer is the time period necessary to observe the ‘‘meaning’’ of the psychologicalevent (Lewin, 1951=1997).

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that a prerequisite for guiding a child is to differentiate between how an adult sees a situation

and that situation which exists for the child. In other words, he highlighted the subtle sig-

nificance of attending to a child’s perception of a situation (Lewin, 1951=1997).

To summarize, the Lewinian field-theoretical perspective offers a framework to incorporate

multiple dimensions in a person-environment interaction analysis. The field concepts, some

of which will be introduced later, provide a useful conceptual tool for a micro level process

analysis at the individual level. The concept of total situation allows for the inclusion of

multiple factors in the mutually influencing dynamic relation between the child and his or her

environment. Moreover, it takes into account simultaneously both background information

(e.g., a child’s disposition, interest, developmental abilities) and situational information (e.g.,

various types of stimulus). Since the attractiveness of a stimulus to a child changes during the

course of the exploration, it fits with the principle of contemporaneity which represents

continual temporal changes. Finally, this framework also allows for the consideration of the

child’s point of view.

ADOPTING FIELD THEORY AS AN APPRAISAL FRAMEWORK

In the following sections, I will adopt Lewin’s field theory to formulate a framework for

appraising children’s life spaces in relation to their curiosity and exploration. While both the

general life situation and the momentary situation will be discussed, I will mainly focus on

analyzing the latter, where I will present some key field concepts. The appraisal framework

will focus on two levels of a child’s momentary situation: from the child-stimulus situation

expanding to the child-stimulus-adult situation. Various hypothetical scenarios will be con-

structed to illustrate various possibilities in the child-stimulus situation. Various facilitating

and hindering factors will be discussed in the child-stimulus-adult situation in promoting

children’s curiosity and exploration.

General Life Situation

The general life situation of Lewin’s psychological life space includes a person’s relatively

stable background factors. As mentioned above, the source of this information relies largely

on the integration and the application of the existing research findings to an individual

person. I will highlight some key areas useful for understanding curiosity and exploration in

children. Among the curiosity and exploration literature, those most important for our

consideration are individual differences among children and their developmental changes.

Differences in the cognitive dimension include preference for novelty and complexity, which

are typical measures used to assess a child’s level of curiosity (Henderson & Moore, 1980). A

child’s inclination of interest may be observed through his or her repeated engagement with a

particular theme (Fink, 1994; Krapp, 1994). One’s preferred mode of exploration may in-

dicate one’s preference for a certain type of information (Kreitler & Kreitler, 1994). De-

velopmentally speaking, one can already observe a gradual structural change in the mode of

exploration from a predominant use of proximal mode of exploration (e.g., manipulation) in

toddlers to an increase use of epistemic mode (e.g., verbal) by early childhood (Voss &

Meyer, 1987).

The adult’s general life situation has equally important indirect effect on momentary adult-

child interactions. Information relevant to our context include: adult’s sensitivity and belief

system, parenting or disciplinary style. High parental exploratory behavior is observed to be

related to high exploratory behavior of children, which appears to generate a mutually re-

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inforcing process. Whereas, non-attentive parent is negatively related to children’s explora-

tion (Endsley et al., 1979; Saxe & Stollak, 1971). These background information are ex-

pected to vary in their influence to each unique child-stimulus or child-stimulus-adult

situation.

Momentary Situation

A situational appraisal consists of understanding the cognitive, affective and social state of

the child’s engagement with the environment at a particular time. In the context of curiosity

and exploration, the appraisal centers on the child’s engagement with the stimulus that he or

she is attracted to at a particular moment. As the appraisal attempts to understand the child’s

perspective, it would require the adult’s careful observation and listening to the child.

Adopting Lewin’s field-theoretical perspective requires an introduction to the field con-

cepts and an alternative frame of mind in applying these concepts. Some imagination is

required to visualize a multi-dimensional spatial interaction of the person with the en-

vironment, or one’s life space. Several field concepts: region, boundary, barrier, force, va-

lence and conflict, will be briefly explained (Lewin, 1935, 1936, 1951=1997) in the context

of curiosity and exploration. When a child is attracted to a stimulus, it can be interpreted as

what he or she needs to fulfill the goal of acquiring some missing information. Exploration of

the stimulus is an attempt to answer various epistemic questions (e.g., what can one do with

the object; how does it work; what does this idea mean; why does this happen). Whether the

child reaches this goal is affected by multiple forces taking place in various psychological,

physical, social regions within his or her life space. Defined as a part of the life space, a

region can encompass a wide range of qualitative characteristics. What a region represents is

thus situation specific. A psychological region can represent one’s cognitive structure or the

dos (permitted acts) and don’ts (prohibited acts) of a child. A physical region can be parts of

a floor space or a school building. A social region can be a social group or a parent-child

relation. A region can also take on a temporal dimension, such as a child’s play time. A

central characteristic of regions is their non-static quality, they denote movements and

changes. A person changes position when transiting from one region to another, such as from

the region of ‘‘drawing alone’’ to that of ‘‘playing with friends’’. A region itself can also

change its character. A child’s cognitive structure becomes more differentiated with increase

in age. Whether a child can access different regions (or the space of free moment) will

expand or limit the options for exploration. For example, an older child possesses cognitively

and physically more ‘‘freedom of movement’’ than a toddler or there are complex mental

cognition (regions) which developmentally may not yet be accessible to a child.

Boundaries connect and at the same time separate two regions and they also take on

various characteristics. Barriers are boundaries which offer resistance to movement. The

degree of influence one can exert depends on the resistance or the solidity of the boundaries,

that is the amount of force needed to produce certain changes. The strength of the barrier is

defined in relation to the amount of movement possible. A barrier can make a region totally

inaccessible or the region can be reached with difficulty. A child’s opportunity to explore the

items in a shop depends on the degree of the parent’s prohibitions and the child’s persistence

to test this barrier. How clear does the child understand the prohibition, represents the

sharpness of the boundary. Two types of forces are at work among these regions, which can

promote or hinder a child from achieving his or her goal. A driving force or positive valence

indicates an attraction toward the stimulus, while a negative valence produces withdrawal or

retreat from the stimulus. Restraining forces correspond to barriers. A child’s momentary

emotional state may also become a barrier in entering a region, for example, anxiety can

hinder exploration. The direction or strength of these forces change over time. Two forces

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working against each other produces conflict. Finally, the accessibility of a region or the

existence of a barrier is interpreted from the child’s perspective or position.

APPRAISING THE CHILD – STIMULUS SITUATION

A child’s momentary engagement with a stimulus is the simplest unit of analysis of his or her

curiosity and exploration. Starting with a simplified model and considering a minimal

number of influencing factors will allow us to illustrate Lewin’s field concepts more thor-

oughly. However, any person-environment interaction is by no means simple and the problem

of the inclusion of more variables will be discussed later. Three hypothetical scenarios: a

satisfying situation, a conflicting situation, an indifferent situation, are constructed to illus-

trate a child’s initial encounter with a stimulus and the subsequent exploration process. In-

itially a child and the stimulus can be represented as two unconnected regions. When

curiosity is aroused, a child’s initial encounter with a stimulus or its attractiveness can be

assumed to range from somewhat indifferent (little attraction) to positive valence (strong

attraction). A negative valence at the initial encounter is unlikely. Once exploration is in-

duced, the valence or the attractiveness of the stimulus to the child is expected to change, thus

the need to engage in further exploration also changes. Exploration of a stimulus, in terms of

knowledge acquisition, is assumed to lead to various types of cognitive changes: differ-

entiation (formation of subregions), integration (formation of larger regions) or restructure

(reorganization of various regions) (Lewin, 1936). These cognitive changes can be inter-

preted as a refinement of the existing knowledge structure. Which of the following scenarios

a child may experience depends on his or her momentary relation with different stimuli.

Scenario 1: a satisfying situation. Positive valence from the stimulus induces the child to

explore. The attractiveness of the stimulus decreases over time and exploration ends when it

loses its attraction. The positive affect present in this scenario, which can be interpreted as an

indication of growth in competence through the mastery of information (White, 1959), en-

courages the child to be interested in future exploration. Repeated observations of the child’s

choice of stimuli which produce this satisfying experience may shed light on his or her

thematic interest (Fink, 1994). However, Lewin (1951=1997) also cautioned of the possibility

that interest in the object decreases immediately after the child gets hold of it. From noting

the duration and the style of a child’s exploration, the adult can estimate how ‘‘fleeting’’ is the

attraction of the stimulus and whether further exploration can be encouraged. In other words,

can the region be further differentiated? I propose that sustaining a child’s curiosity, that is

extending the strength of positive valence, can encourage a child to explore further which in

turn enriches his or her understanding of the stimulus. For example, one can attempt to

extend a young child’s attention span by introducing new ways of manipulating a toy. While

encouraging further exploration one must also be attuned to the child’s affective state, so that

the pleasure of exploration will not be lost.

Scenario 2: a conflict situation. Positive valence from the stimulus induces exploration,

however, the initial attraction is met with a negative valence during the course of exploration,

where the child somehow encounters a barrier. When the attempt to achieve the goal is

impeded by some barrier, and after running into the barrier several times, negative valence is

acquired. Negative valence increases gradually in strength and may finally be stronger than

the positive valence. A conflict of two opposing forces arises and the strength of each force

changes over time. The barriers encountered during the course of exploration are likely to be

cognitive ones, such as, cognitive regions that are developmentally not yet accessible to the

child. Such conflicts may be interpreted as the relation between curiosity and anxiety, where

uncertainty derived from the stimulus is so intense that instead of leading to exploration it

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results in withdrawal (Voss & Keller, 1983). If novel, complex, or ambiguous stimuli tend to

arouse curiosity, then in field-theoretical terms, depending on one’s prior familiarity with a

stimulus, it is an undetermined sector which is partially or completely outside of a person’s

existing cognitive structure (Lewin, 1936). Exploration of this stimulus is thus an attempt to

include or structure this region into one’s cognitive structure. This process is perhaps similar

to Piaget’s description of the process of assimilation and accommodation. Such unfamiliarity

may have the same effect as an impassible obstacle which leads to uncertainty of behavior

(Lewin, 1951=1997). Anxiety and=or frustration is likely to arise when this obstacle cannot

be overcome. To release the tension created from this conflict, exit as withdrawal becomes an

option. Lewin (1935) described withdrawal as ‘‘goes out of the field’’, which takes on various

behavioral manifestation: the child may become restless, leave the task, or even day dream.

Exploration of novelty as a means for cognitive advances in skills and knowledge will in-

evitably produce some level of conflict. The adult can understand the child’s state of the

tension by tracing his or her changing affect during the course of exploration. By accurately

interpreting the negative emotional expression promptly before the negative valence takes

over, a sensitive adult can readily offer the child support to relieve him or her from this

emotional tension (Grossmann et al., 1999). The ability to surpass the obstacles, that is, to

control the taking over of the negative valence, is vital in furthering the child’s exploration.

Scenario 3: an indifferent situation. In this scenario, the valence from the stimulus is weak

and the child is not attracted to it, thus little or no exploration takes place. Such a scenario of

no activity is often ignored. While sporadic occurrence of this scenario may be due to a

mismatch between a child’s interest and the external stimuli encountered, its frequent oc-

currence deserves attention. Adult support is essential to stimulate activity in low-exploration

children. Henderson (1984) found that parental guidance of low-exploratory children en-

hance their ability to actively explore novel objects than when they explore alone. Re-

searchers are aware that curiosity appears to decrease with age, however the reason is still

unknown. It is likely that as one gets older both the form of expression and the content of

interest becomes more epistemic, conceptual, domain specific, and introspective (Mayes,

1991; Kreitler & Kreitler, 1994). However, if a child’s becoming indifference to exploration

aroused by curiosity is due to an increasing need to fulfill external demands and less in

response to his or her own interests, then the potential of curiosity as a motivational force for

knowledge acquisition may be lost.

APPRAISING THE CHILD – STIMULUS – ADULT SITUATION

Since children have less control over their environment, their freedom of movement is often

limited. They are likely to be subjected to two sources of restraining forces or barriers

hindering them from moving toward their exploration goal: limitations due to their own

abilities, such as physical and cognitive skills, and adults as gatekeepers to permit or prohibit

them to engage in various acts. Adults can either be facilitators who help to remove barriers

or can themselves become barriers to access. The most significant gatekeepers in children’s

lives are parents and teachers. The following analysis focuses on illustrating the parent-child-

stimulus situation, it is assumed that similar principles can be applied to other adult-child

contexts.

As stated above, a parent’s general life situation influences the parent-child interaction.

Whether a parent views curiosity negatively (curiosity killed the cat) or positively (as an

innate love for knowledge) would affect how he or she handles a child’s questions and other

exploratory behaviors. More importantly is how these background factors are manifested in

various social setting, accompanied with the parent’s own agenda at a particular time, in

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influencing a parent’s interpretation and response to a child’s exploratory behavior (Schneider

& Unzner, 1994). During a hurried shopping trip in the supermarket, a parent is less likely to

allow time and space for a child to explore items which arouse curiosity. A parent’s sensitivity

in a momentary situation is critical in influencing how he or she responds to the child.

Schaffer (1991) referred to adult sensitivity as including the awareness of the child’s cues and

appropriate and timely response to the child’s behavior.

Parent as barrier. It is recognized that in many situations fulfilling a child’s curiosity need

is not a prioritized goal. There are situations where parents need to set boundaries on whether

exploration at that moment is appropriate. Of importance is the sharpness of the boundaries,

that is, how clear and well-defined are the boundaries between the permitted and prohibited

regions. With clearly set boundaries of prohibited regions, a child knows in advance the space

of the free movement, for example, the crystal section in a shop as a prohibited region.

However, these boundaries become barriers in a child’s eyes, when they offer resistance to

him or her in reaching an attractive stimulus in a prohibited region. Most children are likely

to find a way to break this barrier. Several possible scenarios may occur: the child finds a

weak point in the barrier to penetrate (e.g., the parent gives in) or the parent maintains a solid

boundary thus intensifying the opposing forces. Another likely scenario illustrates both the

parent and the child realize there is space of free movement beyond the prohibited region

within which the stimulus lies. For example, to find a substitute stimulus to divert the child’s

attention. When the attraction to the substitute stimulus increases, positive valence to the

original stimulus will likely decrease. Presumably through this diversion, the original tension

is resolved while the child’s incentive to explore can continue. It is also possible that the

space of free movement can be extended in a temporal sense, for example, the exploration of

a substitute stimulus is postponed.

Unintentional non-attention by the parent can also become an additional source of barrier

for the child. To overcome a barrier faced when exploring a stimulus, a child solicits as-

sistance from the parent. There are moments when a parent is under pressure or is pre-

occupied by his or her own goal, a child’s request for assistance is often ignored. For

example, a tired parent or one who is busy preparing for a meal may not be as attentive to a

child’s questions. A parent’s frequent non-attention to a child’s curiosity needs or to requests

for assistance poses concern. In the former case, a child’s psychological space of freedom of

movement may be limited. In the latter, a child’s main source of assistance to overcome

barriers is blocked.

Parent as facilitator to remove barriers. Just as parents possess a great amount of control

over their children, they are also the main resource that children turn to overcome any

barriers. As described in scenarios 2 and 3 of the child-stimulus situation, the main sources of

barriers a child is likely to encounter during the process the exploration are cognitive lim-

itations and the accompanied emotional effect. In scenario 2, the child’s affective state is a

reliable indicator of the strength of a barrier being encountered. By overcoming the barrier,

the valence of the stimulus is changed, which results in further exploration. Some of the

cognitive barriers encountered by children are probably developmental which also limit their

repertoire of exploratory strategies.

I will combine field concepts with Vygotsky’s concept of zone of proximal development

to interpret the developmental cognitive barriers encountered in scenario 2. The zone of

proximal development is defined as ‘‘the distance between the actual developmental level as

determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as de-

termined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more

capable peers’’ (Vygotsky, 1978; p.86). By identifying the region which the child has already

reached (actual developmental level) and the potential goal region that may be reached

(potential developmental level), the task is then to construct a path to connect these regions.

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Several subregions or intermediate steps have to be passed through before reaching the goal.

If moving along this path represents a process of new cognitive advances, then passing

through each subregion may pose a new challenge to the child and may potentially be his or

her upper cognitive limit at this time point. Upon passing through a subregion, the child has

overcome a barrier and faces a new one in the subsequent subregion. Success in surpassing

each subregion reverses the negative valence from the stimulus and encourages the child to

explore further. The adult thus takes on a dual role of formulating the subregions and of

guiding the child to move across these subregions toward the potential goal.5 Again the

adult’s sensitivity to the child’s affective changes while moving along this path is critical.

When a child is developmentally ready for a cognitive advance, adult guidance can help the

child to overcome a barrier. However, a barrier may be so solid that developmentally it cannot

yet be surpassed by the child, therefore so as not to dampen the pleasure of exploration, the

potential goal has to be adjusted. The child’s changing emotional state with the accompanied

behavioral manifestation indicates whether his or her cognitive limit is reached. For example,

an 8-year-old interested to understand the concept of ‘‘government’’, will likely be faced with

cognitive barriers and is unlikely to gain a full understanding of this concept due to its

hierarchical abstractness. This distant goal (potential level) can be broken down into sub-

regions and connecting them to regions already possessed by the child (actual level). The

child’s present experiences of governmental institutions (e.g., school and community sys-

tems) may represent an already accessible region. Further abstract levels (subsequent sub-

regions) of this concept can then be built from this base. Take another example, a 3-year-old

may not possess various cognitive strategies needed to complete a puzzle (e.g., spatial ro-

tation of a piece, memory recall of the full picture). A prolonged use of the trial-and-error

strategy may frustrate him or her. Adult modeling of various strategies can push the child

developmentally to form new cognitive regions of exploratory strategies. When a child’s

space of free movement is expanded, it is likely that the interest in exploration and in-

dependent investigation can be enhanced.

Turning to scenario 3, in order to arouse a child’s attention to a stimulus, that is, to induce a

positive valence toward it, there must be aspects of the stimulus that attracts his or her at-

tention. Questioning is often seen as an indication of curiosity, which is then followed by

exploration to search for the answer. Berlyne (1960) remarked that ‘‘all specific epistemic

behavior must be launched by the equivalent of a question’’ (p.289). Educational researchers

recognize questioning as a vehicle to promote student learning (Renninger, 1998). To initiate

questions, some sort of cognitive differentiation or variation must be noticed in the stimulus.

When viewed from a distance, an object is usually seen as undifferentiated, on closer ex-

amination, distinctions among differentiated regions becomes noticeable (Lewin, 1936). The

aim of questioning is thus to arouse a child to notice the differentiated regions within a

stimulus, to discover its novelty and complexity. A ball remains a ball, however, when one

begins to differentiate among its functions, structure and purpose, then the ‘‘what, when,

why, how’’ questions are more likely to be aroused. For older children, generating cognitive

dissonance or ‘‘conceptual conflict’’ through highlighting discrepancies and incongruities can

also provoke curiosity (Berlyne, 1960). Such cognitive imbalance or conflict leads to cog-

nitive restructuring and Berlyne proclaimed that it can ‘‘keep epistemic curiosity alive and

. . . the epistemic process moving’’ (p.290). Through questioning the adult stimulates the

child to examine a stimulus closely, while simultaneously monitors the child’s affective re-

sponse and helps him or her to cope with cognitive conflicts which may arise.

In all of the scenarios, adult’s sensitivity and support is aimed at reducing the child’s

emotional tension without interrupting or interfering with the exploratory process – to

5Similar ideas have been discussed by Wood & Middleton (1975) and Wertsch et al.’s (1980). Their work arerelated to Vygotsky’s concept of zone of proximal development.

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comfort the child while simultaneously to encourage him or her to continue with the task at

hand (Grossmann et al., 1999). Younger children may require more opportunities with an

adult’s presence so that the emotional signals can be interpreted and responded promptly.

Older children may only require the knowledge of an adult’s availability, someone he or she

can turn to in times of need. Further, attention to individual difference is important. Adult

guidance helpful to low-exploratory and younger children can become interference for high-

exploratory and older children (Henderson, 1984, 1991). In facilitating the child’s explora-

tion, there is only a fine line between guidance and pushing forth the adult’s own agenda, for

example, on what one thinks the child ought to learn. In the latter case, the adult again

becomes a barrier.

POTENTIALS AND LIMITATIONS

In this paper, I have adopted Lewin’s field theory as a conceptual tool to propose a framework

to appraise the process of children’s curiosity and exploration and to highlight adults’ role in

sustaining children’s curiosity so as to further their exploration. This framework presents the

advantage of a micro level process analysis on a person’s momentary interaction with the

environment. As a framework for appraisal, it is broad and flexible enough to accommodate

variables relevant to a specific person in a specific context. Yet, we have to acknowledge that

although theoretically, one can conceptualize the dynamic movements of multiple regions in

one’s life space, in practice, only a limited number of regions, especially the stable back-

ground factors in one’s general life situation, can be studied at a momentary situation. Lewin

(1936) himself recognized the difficulty of representing a multi-dimensional life space. Thus

although one’s life space becomes increasingly differentiated with age, only certain crucial

regions can be considered at a particular situation. Nonetheless, this framework allows the

practitioner the freedom to select the essential regions deemed important to be analyzed at

any one moment. Finally, the ways field concepts have been conceived and interpreted in this

paper to represent a child’s exploration of a stimulus are by no means exhaustive and em-

pirical testing of this theoretical framework and its further refinement is called for.

What is the benefit of adopting Lewin’s field-theoretical concepts to understand children’s

curiosity and exploration? As illustrated in this paper, the use of this framework is meant to

complement existing research findings. Given the pool of literature on curiosity and ex-

ploration, this framework facilitates the pulling together of existing information to be applied

to an individual child at a particular time. The framework combines the advantage of be-

coming sensitive to the child’s world (seeing the trees) supported by the already existing

wealth of theoretical and research information (without missing the forest). After all, the aim

is to support the child’s quest for knowledge through pleasurable exploration, so that he or

she will continue to be motivated to further such experiences.

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