学龄前儿童社会善念理解的发展与心理理论的关系

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2022.00892

摘要/Abstract

摘要：

本文探究了4~6岁儿童社会善念理解的发展及其与心理理论的关系。研究测量了100名4~6岁儿童的社会善念理解、心理理论、亲社会性和执行功能。结果发现, 随着年龄增长, 儿童愈加在社会评价和朋友偏好上倾向于社会善念人物, 并且此社会善念理解能力与心理理论的发展呈显著正相关, 且此相关在控制了年龄、执行功能及亲社会性后依然稳定存在, 但社会善念理解与亲社会性并不相关。此结果表明, 心理理论可能对社会善念理解的发展有重要作用。

关键词: 社会认知发展, 社会善念, 心理理论, 学龄前儿童, 道德认知

Abstract:

We live in a highly interdependent world. Even if we do not directly interact with others, our own behaviors can have an indirect impact on others. Such behaviors that indirectly bring benefits to others are defined as considerate, socially-mindful actions. In this study, we examined preschoolers’ evaluation of considerate socially-mindful actions; importantly, we also explored the underlying developmental mechanisms by examining its potential relationship to the development of theory-of-mind abilities. A total of 100 children aged 4~6 were recruited in this study. In the social mindfulness task, children were asked to compare two story characters, both of whom were to choose snack at snack time. One of the characters leaves a choice for the person waiting behind when she took a piece of fruit for herself (i.e., acts socially mindful), while the other character in a similar situation leaves no choice for the person waiting behind (i.e., does not act socially mindful). Children were then asked 1) which of these two characters was nicer and 2) who they would prefer to choose as a friend. In addition, children were also administered theory-of-mind tasks (including the content false belief task, location false belief task, and hidden emotion task). We also measured children’s prosocial orientation (by a sharing task) and executive functioning capacity (by a Day/Night Stroop task) as controlling variables. We found that, first, with age, children increasingly rated the socially-mindful character as nicer than the character who left no choice, and increasingly selected the socially-mindful character as a friend. Second, when controlling for age, children's evaluations and friend preference in the social mindfulness task was significantly positively correlated with their theory-of-mind, but was not correlated with their sharing behaviors or executive functioning. Such correlation remained significant when controlling for sharing and executive functioning. In summary, between the ages 4 and 6, children gradually develop an understanding and evaluation of social mindfulness, and such development is correlated with the development of theory-of-mind abilities. These findings provide insights for our understanding of children's social and moral evaluation and its underlying developmental mechanism.

Key words: social cognitive development, social mindfulness, theory of mind, preschoolers, moral cognition

中图分类号:

B844

赵欣, 李丹丹, 杨向东. (2022). 学龄前儿童社会善念理解的发展与心理理论的关系. 心理学报, 54(8), 892-904.

ZHAO Xin, LI Dandan, YANG Xiangdong. (2022). The relationship between preschoolers’ understanding of considerate socially-mindful actions and theory of mind. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 54(8), 892-904.

图/表 12

图1 社会善念理解任务的故事示例

表1 各个任务中儿童得分的平均值(标准差)、范围及与年龄(月份)的相关性

实验任务	平均值(标准差)	范围	与年龄(月份) 的相关性
社会善念理解	0.66 (0.38)	0~1	0.23^*
社会评价	0.61 (0.49)	0~1	0.14
朋友偏好	0.70 (0.46)	0~1	0.24^*
心理理论	0.63 (0.32)	0~1	0.23^*
意外内容	0.62 (0.49)	0~1	0.26^**
意外地点	0.71 (0.46)	0~1	0.17
隐藏情绪	0.67 (0.25)	0~1	0.10
分享	1.71 (1.11)	0~5	-0.19
执行功能	90.83% (16.47%)	0~100%	0.21^*

图2 儿童在社会善念理解任务的两个问题中选择社会善念人物的比例与年龄的关系(阴影部分代表95%置信区间)

图3 儿童在社会善念理解任务的两个问题中提供有关“给他人留选择”这一概念的解释的比例与年龄的关系(阴影部分代表95%置信区间)

图4 儿童的心理理论得分与年龄的关系(阴影部分代表95%置信区间)

图5 儿童在分享任务中分享贴纸的数量与年龄的关系(阴影部分代表95%置信区间)

图6 儿童在执行功能任务中的正确率与年龄的关系(阴影部分代表95%置信区间)

表2 儿童在社会善念任务中的回答与心理理论得分的双变量相关系数与偏相关系数(控制了年龄)

相关系数	社会评价问题	朋友偏好问题	社会善念理解得分
与心理理论得分的双变量相关	0.23*	0.25*	0.31**
与心理理论得分的偏相关(控制了年龄)	0.21*	0.20*	0.26*

图7 社会善念理解得分与心理理论得分之间的正相关(控制了年龄之后)

图8 心理理论任务通过的个数对社会善念理解得分的影响(误差线代表标准误, *表示在0.05级别有显著的组间差异)

表3 以社会善念理解为因变量的线性回归模型总结

模型	R²	ΔR²	Fchange	B	SE
1. 年龄	0.05		5.58^*	0.19^*	0.08
2. 年龄	0.12	0.07	7.45^**	0.14	0.08
心理理论得分	0.12	0.07	7.45^**	0.31^**	0.12
3. 年龄	0.13	0.01	0.29	0.13	0.08
心理理论得分				0.30^*	0.12
分享得分				-0.02	0.03
执行功能得分				0.00	0.00

表4 儿童的社会善念理解得分与亲社会倾向、执行功能等的双变量相关系数与偏相关系数(控制了年龄)

相关系数	分享得分	教师评价的亲社会性	家长评价的助人行为频率	家长评价的分享行为频率	执行功能
与社会善念理解得分的双变量相关	-0.14	-0.02	0.09	-0.11	0.14
与社会善念理解得分的偏相关(控制了年龄)	-0.18	-0.12	0.09	-0.07	0.01

参考文献 48

[1]	Blake P. R. (2018). Giving what one should: Explanations for the knowledge-behavior gap for altruistic giving. Current Opinion in Psychology, 20, 1-5. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.07.041 URL
[2]	Blake P. R., McAuliffe K., & Warneken F. (2014). The developmental origins of fairness: The knowledge-behavior gap. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18(11), 559-561. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2014.08.003 URL
[3]	Bridgers S., Jara-Ettinger J., & Gweon H. (2020). Young children consider the expected utility of others’ learning to decide what to teach. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(2), 144-152. doi: 10.1038/s41562-019-0748-6 pmid: 31611659
[4]	Burns M. P., & Sommerville J. (2014). “I pick you”: the impact of fairness and race on infants’ selection of social partners. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 93.
[5]	Brownell C. A., Svetlova M., & Nichols S. (2009). To share or not to share: When do toddlers respond to another's needs?. Infancy, 14(1), 117-130. doi: 10.1080/15250000802569868 pmid: 22639549
[6]	Brownell C. A., Svetlova M., Anderson R., Nichols S. R., & Drummond J. (2013). Socialization of early prosocial behavior: Parents’ talk about emotions is associated with sharing and helping in toddlers. Infancy, 18(1), 91-119. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00125.x URL
[7]	Carlson S. M., & Moses L. J. (2001). Individual differences in inhibitory control and children’s theory of mind. Child Development, 72(4), 1032-1053. pmid: 11480933
[8]	Chernyak N., & Kushnir T. (2013). Giving preschoolers choice increases sharing behavior. Psychological Science, 24(10), 1971-1979. doi: 10.1177/0956797613482335 pmid: 23955355
[9]	Chernyak N., Leimgruber K. L., Dunham Y. C., Hu J., & Blake P. R. (2019). Paying back people who harmed us but not people who helped us: Direct negative reciprocity precedes direct positive reciprocity in early development. Psychological Science, 30(9), 1273-1286. doi: 10.1177/0956797619854975 pmid: 31381490
[10]	Dahl A. (2015). The developing social context of infant helping in two U.S. samples. Child Development, 86(4), 1080-1093. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12361 URL
[11]	Dou K., Liu Y. Z., Wang Y. J., & Nie Y. G. (2018). Willingness to cooperate: emotion enhancement mechanism of perceived social mindfulness on cooperative behaviour. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 50(1), 101-114. doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00101 URL
	[ 窦凯, 刘耀中, 王玉洁, 聂衍刚. (2018). “乐”于合作:感知社会善念诱导合作行为的情绪机制. 心理学报, 50(1), 101-114.]
[12]	Dou K., Nie Y. G., Wang Y. J., & Liu Y. Z. (2018). Trust or defence? The enhancing effect of perceived social mindfulness on cooperative behavior during interactive game. Journal of Psychological Science, 41(2), 390-396.
	[ 窦凯, 聂衍刚, 王玉洁, 刘耀中. (2018). 信任还是设防?互动博弈中社会善念对合作行为的促进效应. 心理科学, 41(2), 390-396.]
[13]	Dou K., Nie Y. G., Wang Y. J., & Zhang Q. P. (2017). Social mindfulness in the interpersonal interaction: Conceptualization, assessment and influenced mechanism. Advances in Psychology, 7(9), 1101-1112. doi: 10.12677/AP.2017.79138 URL
	[ 窦凯, 聂衍刚, 王玉洁, 张庆鹏. (2017). 人际互动中的社会善念: 概念、测评及影响机制. 心理学进展, 7(9), 1101-1112.]
[14]	Dunfield K., Kuhlmeier V. A., O’Connell L., & Kelley E. (2011). Examining the diversity of prosocial behavior: Helping, sharing, and comforting in infancy. Infancy, 16(3), 227-247. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-7078.2010.00041.x pmid: 32693496
[15]	Engelmann J. M., Over H., Herrmann E., & Tomasello M. (2013). Young children care more about their reputation with ingroup members and potential reciprocators. Developmental Science, 16(6), 952-958. doi: 10.1111/desc.12086 pmid: 24118719
[16]	Fehr E., Bernhard H., & Rockenbach B. (2008). Egalitarianism in young children. Nature, 454(7208), 1079-1083. doi: 10.1038/nature07155 URL
[17]	Gerstadt C. L., Hong Y. J., & Diamond A. (1994). The relationship between cognition and action: Performance of children 3 1/2-7 years old on a stroop-like day-night test. Cognition, 53(2), 129-153. pmid: 7805351
[18]	Hamlin J. K., Wynn K., & Bloom P. (2007). Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450(7169), 557-559. doi: 10.1038/nature06288 URL
[19]	Hay D. F. (1979). Cooperative interactions and sharing between very young children and their parents. Developmental Psychology, 15(6), 647-653. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.15.6.647 URL
[20]	Hay D. F., & Murray P. (1982). Giving and requesting: social facilitation of infants’ offers to adults. Infant Behavior and Development, 5(2-4), 301-310. doi: 10.1016/S0163-6383(82)80039-8 URL
[21]	Iyengar S. S., & Lepper M. R. (1999). Rethinking the value of choice: A cultural perspective on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 349-366. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.76.3.349 pmid: 10101874
[22]	Johnson P. O., & Neyman J. (1936). Tests of certain linear hypotheses and their application to some educational problems. Statistical Research Memoirs, 1, 57-93
[23]	Killen M., Mulvey K. L., Richardson C., Jampol N., & Woodward A. (2011). The accidental transgressor: Morally-relevant theory of mind. Cognition, 119(2), 197-215. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.01.006 URL
[24]	Liszkowski U., Carpenter M., & Tomasello M. (2008). Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriately for knowledgeable and ignorant partners. Cognition, 108(3), 732-739. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2008.06.013 pmid: 18721918
[25]	Liu D., Wellman H. M., Tardif T., & Sabbagh M. A. (2008). Theory of mind development in Chinese children: A meta-analysis of false-belief understanding across cultures and languages. Developmental Psychology, 44(2), 523-531. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.44.2.523 URL
[26]	Lu H., Su Y., & Wang Q. (2008). Talking about others facilitates theory of mind in Chinese preschoolers. Developmental Psychology, 44(6), 1726-1736. doi: 10.1037/a0013074 URL
[27]	Moore B. (2009). Emotional intelligence for school administrators: A priority for school reform? American Secondary Education, 37(3), 20-28.
[28]	Premack D., & Woodruff G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(4), 515-526. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X00076512 URL
[29]	Rheingold H. L., Hay D. F., & West M. J. (1976). Sharing in the second year of life. Child Development, 47(4), 1148-1158. doi: 10.2307/1128454 URL
[30]	Sabbagh M. A., Xu F., Carlson S. M., Moses L. J., & Lee K. (2006). The development of executive functioning and theory of mind: A comparison of Chinese and U.S. preschoolers. Psychological Science, 17(1), 74-81. pmid: 16371147
[31]	Schmidt M. F. H., & Sommerville J. A. (2011). Fairness expectations and altruistic sharing in 15-month-old human infants. PloS One, 6(10), e23223. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0023223 URL
[32]	Sloane S., Baillargeon R., & Premack D. (2012). Do infants have a sense of fairness? Psychological Science, 23(2), 196-204. doi: 10.1177/0956797611422072 URL
[33]	Smetana J. G., Jambon M., Conry-Murray C., & Sturge-Apple M. L. (2012). Reciprocal associations between young children’s developing moral judgments and theory of mind. Developmental Psychology, 48(4), 1144-1155. doi: 10.1037/a0025891 pmid: 22004340
[34]	Smetana J. G., Rote W. M., Jambon M., Tasopoulos-Chan M., Villalobos M., & Comer J. (2012). Developmental changes and individual differences in young children’s moral judgments. Child Development, 83(2), 683-696. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01714.x pmid: 22235962
[35]	Svetlova M., Nichols S. R., & Brownell C. A. (2010). Toddlers’ prosocial behavior: From instrumental to empathic to altruistic helping. Child Development, 81(6), 1814-1827. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01512.x URL
[36]	Tian Y., Wang L., & Xu Y. (2020). Research status and prospect of social mindfulness. Advances in Psychology, 10(8), 1069-1078. doi: 10.12677/AP.2020.108127 URL
	[ 田一, 王莉, 许燕. (2020). 社会善念的研究现状及展望. 心理学进展, 10(8), 1069-1078.]
[37]	van de Vondervoort J. W., & Hamlin J. K. (2017). Preschoolers’ social and moral judgments of third-party helpers and hinderers align with infants’ social evaluations. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 164, 136-151. doi: S0022-0965(16)30198-9 pmid: 28822295
[38]	van Doesum N. J., van Lange D. A. W., & van Lange P. A. M. (2013). Social mindfulness: Skill and will to navigate the social world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(1), 86-103. doi: 10.1037/a0032540 pmid: 23647176
[39]	Van Lange P. A. M., & Van Doesum N. J. (2015). Social mindfulness and social hostility. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 3, 18-24. doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2014.12.009 URL
[40]	Wang Q., Su Y. J., & Liu L. H. (2000). Theory of mind—A broad and challenging research field. Acta Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Pekinensis, 36(5), 733-738.
	[ 王茜, 苏彦捷, 刘立惠. (2000). 心理理论——一个广阔而充满挑战的研究领域. 北京大学学报(自然科学版), 36(5), 733-738.]
[41]	Warneken F., & Tomasello M. (2006). Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees. Science, 311(5765), 1301-1303. pmid: 16513986
[42]	Warneken F., & Tomasello M. (2013). The emergence of contingent reciprocity in young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116(2), 338-350. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.002 pmid: 23917162
[43]	Wellman H. M. (2014). Making minds: How theory of mind develops. Oxford University Press.
[44]	Wellman H. M., Fang F., Liu D., Zhu L., & Liu G. (2006). Scaling of theory-of-mind understandings in Chinese children. Psychological Science, 17(12), 1075-1081. pmid: 17201790
[45]	Wörle M., & Paulus M. (2019). Normative foundations of reciprocity in preschoolers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 188, 104693. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104693 URL
[46]	Wu Z., & Su Y. (2014). How do preschoolers’ sharing behaviors relate to their theory of mind understanding? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 120, 73-86. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.11.007 URL
[47]	Zhao X., Wente A., Flecha M. F., Galvan D. S., Gopnik A., & Kushnir T. (2021). Culture moderates the relationship between self-control ability and free will beliefs in childhood. Cognition, 210, 104609. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104609 URL
[48]	Zhao X., Zhao X., Gweon H., & Kushnir T. (2021). Leaving a choice for others: Children’s evaluations of considerate, socially-mindful actions. Child Development, 92(4), 1238-1253. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13480 pmid: 33458830