Lagattuta K H, Wellman H M
Developmental Psychology, University of Michigan, East University, Ann Arbor 48109-1109, USA.
Child Dev. 2001 Jan-Feb;72(1):82-102. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00267.
In two studies the authors investigated the situations where 3- to 7-year-olds and adults (N = 152) will connect a person's current feelings to the past, especially to thinking or being reminded about a prior experience. Study 1 presented stories featuring a target character who felt sad, mad, or happy after an event in the past and who many days later felt that same negative or positive emotion upon seeing a cue related to the prior incident. For some story endings, the character's emotion upon seeing the cue matched, or was congruent, with the current situation, whereas for others, the emotion mismatched the present circumstances. Participants were asked to explain the cause of each character's current feelings. As a further comparison, children and adults listened to behavior cuing stories and provided explanations for characters' present actions. Study 2 presented emotional scenarios that varied by emotion-situation fit (whether the character's emotion matched the current situation), person-person fit (whether the character's emotion matched another person's), and past history information (whether information about the character's past was known). Results showed that although there were several significant developments with increasing age, even most 3-year-olds demonstrated some knowledge about connections between past events and present emotions and between thinking and feeling. Indeed, children 5 years and younger revealed strikingly cogent understanding about historical-mental influences in certain situations, especially where they had to explain why a person, who had experienced a negative event in the past, was currently feeling sad or mad in a positive situation. These findings help underwrite a more general account of the development of children's coherent understandings of life history, mind, and emotion.
在两项研究中，作者调查了3至7岁儿童和成年人（N = 152）在何种情况下会将一个人的当前感受与过去联系起来，特别是与回忆或想起之前的经历联系起来。研究1呈现了一些故事，故事中的目标角色在过去的一个事件后感到悲伤、愤怒或高兴，并且在许多天后，当看到与先前事件相关的线索时，又感受到了相同的负面或正面情绪。对于一些故事结局，角色看到线索时的情绪与当前情况相匹配，或者说是一致的，而对于其他结局，情绪与当前情况不匹配。参与者被要求解释每个角色当前感受的原因。作为进一步的比较，儿童和成年人听了行为提示故事，并对角色的当前行为做出解释。研究2呈现了情绪场景，这些场景因情绪与情境的匹配度（角色的情绪是否与当前情况相匹配）、人与人之间的匹配度（角色的情绪是否与另一个人的情绪相匹配）以及过去历史信息（是否知道角色的过去信息）而有所不同。结果表明，尽管随着年龄增长有几个显著的发展，但即使是大多数3岁的儿童也表现出了一些关于过去事件与当前情绪之间以及思维与感受之间联系的知识。事实上，5岁及以下的儿童在某些情况下表现出了对历史心理影响的惊人深刻理解，特别是在他们必须解释为什么一个过去经历过负面事件的人在当前积极的情况下会感到悲伤或愤怒时。这些发现有助于更全面地解释儿童对生活历史、思维和情感的连贯理解的发展。
