University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Br J Dev Psychol. 2011 Sep;29(Pt 3):524-51. doi: 10.1348/026151010X521475. Epub 2011 Feb 3.
This study aimed to examine child characteristics associated with the understanding of and responses to infant crying. Seven hundred and twenty-four 1st to 7th grade children (383 boys, 341 girls) were shown a picture depicting a crying infant, whereupon they were asked to generate the potential causes for infant crying along with the action responses that they might utilize to assist a crying baby. Self-reports of children's empathy-related responding were also obtained. As hypothesized, an age-related increase in the number, variety, and quality for causes for infant crying and strategies to help a crying infant were observed. Girls generated a higher mean number and variety of causes compared to boys. For older children (grades 4-7), dimensions of empathy-related responding, namely sympathy and perspective taking, were significantly associated with the number and variety of causes for infant crying and caregiving strategies. The findings support the conclusion for a developmental progression of understanding of facial expressions of infant crying across middle childhood.
本研究旨在探讨与儿童对婴儿哭声的理解和反应相关的特征。共有 724 名 1 至 7 年级的儿童（383 名男孩，341 名女孩）观看了一张描绘哭泣婴儿的图片，随后他们被要求生成婴儿哭泣的潜在原因以及他们可能用来帮助哭泣婴儿的行动反应。同时还获得了儿童同理心相关反应的自我报告。正如假设的那样，我们观察到了与婴儿哭泣原因和帮助哭泣婴儿策略相关的数量、种类和质量随年龄增长而增加的情况。女孩比男孩产生了更多的原因数量和种类。对于年龄较大的儿童（4-7 年级），同理心相关反应的维度，即同情和换位思考，与婴儿哭泣的原因数量和照顾策略显著相关。这些发现支持了一个结论，即儿童对面部表情的理解在整个童年中期会逐渐发展。
