Manfra Louis, Davis Kelly D, Ducenne Lesley, Winsler Adam
a University of Missouri.
J Genet Psychol. 2014 May-Aug;175(3-4):332-45. doi: 10.1080/00221325.2014.917067.
Although prior research has shown that young children exhibit enhanced self-control when they use verbal strategies provided through adult instructions, little work has examined the role of children's spontaneous verbalizations or motor behavior as strategies for enhancing self-control. The present study examined the usefulness of spontaneous verbal and motor strategies for 39 3- and 4-year-old children's ability to exercise self-control during a resistance-to-temptation task. After a 2-min play period, participants were asked by an experimenter not to touch an attractive train set while he was out of the room. Children were videotaped during the 3-min waiting period and videos were coded for frequency and duration of touches, motor movements, and verbalizations. Results indicated that self-control was improved by using both motor and verbal strategies. Children who were unable to resist touching the forbidden toy used limited motor or verbal strategies. These findings add to the growing literature demonstrating the positive role of verbalizations on cognitive control and draw attention to motor behaviors as additional strategies used by young children to exercise self-control.
尽管先前的研究表明，幼儿在使用成人指导提供的语言策略时表现出更强的自我控制能力，但很少有研究探讨儿童自发的言语表达或运动行为作为增强自我控制策略的作用。本研究考察了自发的语言和运动策略对39名3至4岁儿童在抵制诱惑任务中自我控制能力的有效性。在2分钟的玩耍时间后，实验者要求参与者在他离开房间时不要触摸一套吸引人的玩具火车。在3分钟的等待期间对儿童进行录像，并对录像中触摸、运动动作和言语表达的频率和持续时间进行编码。结果表明，使用运动和语言策略都能提高自我控制能力。无法抗拒触摸禁玩玩具的儿童使用的运动或语言策略有限。这些发现进一步丰富了越来越多的文献，证明了言语表达对认知控制的积极作用，并将注意力吸引到运动行为上，将其作为幼儿用来锻炼自我控制的额外策略。
