Promiscuous Teleology Kellermen

Promiscuous Teleology is a concept described by Deborah Kelemen (1999). The idea is based on findings that preschool children tend to attribute functions to a variety of objects and parts of objects. In another study, children and adults viewed an object's function as what it was designed to perform.

Reference

Kelemen, D. (1999). The scope of teleological thinking in preschool children. Cognition, 70, 241–272. doi:10.1016/S0010-0277(99)00010-4