Social Science Bites Frank Keil on Causal Thinking
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Nov 3, 2025 
Frank Keil, a professor at Yale specializing in psychology and linguistics, dives into the importance of causal thinking. He explains how children naturally ask numerous 'why' questions, which dramatically decline as they grow older, leading to a shallow understanding of the world. Keil warns that this decline makes society vulnerable to misinformation and stresses the need for deeper, mechanistic knowledge. He also emphasizes encouraging curiosity and critical thinking in children to combat the superficial grasp of complex modern topics.
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Children Use Multiple Causal Stances
- Children naturally distinguish agents from inanimate objects and apply different causal stances to each.
- Frank Keil says this causal pluralism helps children predict and interact with the world effectively.
Infants Test Surprising Events Actively
- Lisa Feigenson's infant experiments show babies actively test physical puzzles, not just look for surprises.
- Infants pick up and bang objects to check solidity and seek holes when events seem to pass through objects.
Curiosity Declines After School Starts
- Children's early hunger for causal explanations deepens through preschool but often stalls after school starts.
- Keil argues schooling and cultural practices suppress the why-questions that fuel causal understanding.