儿童行为与心理水平的特质推理的发展

选取4岁组、5岁组、7岁组、10岁组、12岁组儿童和成人共192名(各年龄组32名, 男女各半)为被试, 采用个别测查法考察学前和小学儿童行为与心理水平的特质推理发展。结果表明: (1)4岁时儿童已能进行行为水平的特质推理, 5岁时才能进行心理水平的特质推理, 即使用特质引发规则进行特质推理, 10岁时两者均达到成人水平。(2)4岁、5岁时儿童心理水平的特质推理显著落后于行为水平的特质推理, 至少7岁时两者处于同一水平上。(3)儿童使用概念相似规则而不是情境匹配规则进行行为预测。(4)4岁儿童不使用简单效价规则进行行为预测, 5岁及以上儿童使用简单效价规则, 但他们是在区分同一特质范畴和不同特质范畴的基础上、在较低的确定程度上使用该规则。

The Development of Trait Inference at Behavioral and Psychological Levels

Personality traits are stable, internal characteristics that enable people to summarize, explain, and predict behavior. People often make inference about behavior based on personality traits. It is suggested that trait inference may be made at two different levels: behavioral and psychological. During the past three decades, researchers have been interested in children's understanding of traits, and a large amount of research has been conducted to investigate the development of trait inference. Before the 1990s, the majority of studies focused on children's trait inference at the behavioral level by using behavior predictions. After the 1990s, researchers studied the psychological cause of behavioral regularity by examining children's theory of mind and internal state predictions. However, less attention has been paid to direct comparisons of the two levels of children's trait inference and the rules they use to make behavioral and psychological predictions. The aim of the present study was to investigate the development of trait inference at the two levels and the use of different rules that children used in trait inference.The participants in the study included 160 children at 4 to 12 years and 32 undergraduate students. Trait inference was measured through behavioral and emotional predictions, and the information was collected about the rules children used to make trait inference.The major results are as follows. First, children at least from age 4 were capable of making trait inference at the behavioral level, and from age 5 capable of making trait inference at the psychological level. Chidren's trait inferences at both levels matured at 10 years. Second, trait inference at the psychological level fell behind trait inference at the behavioral level at ages 4 and 5, and there were no significant differences between the two types of inferences at age 7. Third, children used a conceptual similarity rule rather than a simple situation-matching rule to predict behavior. Finally, children at 4 years did not employ a simple valence rule to make cross-trait category behavioral predictions, whereas children at 5, 7, 10 and 12-years and adults showed evidences of using this rule in a clearly discriminating way.These findings indicate the developmental trend of trait inference at the behavioral and psychological levels in Chinese children. The study also provides some new information about the strategies that children might use to make behavioral predictions.