From Psychobabble to Neuro-nonsense: Cognitivism, Neuroscience and Children’s Literature
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Drawing on Jacqueline Rose’s thesis on the “impossibility” of children’s literature, the study explores how childhood and the child are inherently shaped by adult desires both in what are seen to be “fiction” and “real life”. Through an examination of key theorists and critical debates, this paper analyses the influence of neuroscientific and cognitivist paradigms on the conceptualization of empathy, theory of mind, and identification. The article concludes that while cognitivist approaches and evolutionary psychology claim to offer a universal and unchanging knowledge of the child, they necessarily rely on “old” psychology models that in turn also reproduce prior discourses of childhood.
Author: Karin Lesnik-Oberstein
Institution: University of Reading
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2777347942