A 5-year-old boy told his mother that he had an accident with his bicycle because he was thinking of taking some money from his mother. This type of reasoning is known as
The type of reasoning used by this 5-year-old boy, who believed that something bad he was thinking caused a bad event to occur (i.e., the bicycle accident), is called magical thinking. This type of reasoning is typical of children in Piaget's preoperational stage (age 2-7 years).
Adaptive reasoning
Magical thinking
Concrete operation
Abstract reasoning