Give examples of how children of different cultures incorporate biological concepts into their understanding.

When exposed to biological concepts of illness, children of all cultures tend to incorporate them into their understanding. For example, one study of 5- to 15-year-old children and adults from Sesotho-speaking South African communities showed that the participants, who were exposed to Western medicine, most commonly endorsed biological explanations for illness, but also often endorsed witchcraft. Both natural and supernatural explanations were viewed as complementary. Likewise, comparisons of older children, adolescents, and adults from Tanna and Vanatu, remote islands off the coast of Malaysia find that as individuals are confronted with scientific understandings of the world, they integrate scientific explanations with pre-existing supernatural and other kinds of natural (e.g., folk-biological) explanations. Tanna and Vanatu children endorsed biological just as frequently as supernatural explanations, but adolescents and adults most commonly endorsed biological explanations.
With age and across cultural groups, when individuals are exposed to biological explanations of illness, such explanations tend to be most frequently endorsed. Moreover, the coexistence of biological and nonbiological reasoning about causes of illness is not confined to specific cultures. For example, in the United States, and other industrialized societies, many alternative medicine practitioners attribute illness to negative thinking, and other psychological problems. U.S. children and adults tend retain some supernatural explanations alongside biological explanations. Among people in all cultures, diverse, culturally constructed belief systems about illness co-exist with factual understanding and explanations of illness change with development.