Blacker Katy-Ann, LoBue Vanessa
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2016 Mar;143:162-70. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.033. Epub 2015 Nov 23.
Although there is a large literature on children's reasoning about contagion, there has been no empirical research on children's avoidance of contagious individuals. This study is the first to investigate whether children avoid sick individuals. Participants (4- to 7-year-old children) were invited to play with two confederates-one of whom was "sick." Afterward, their knowledge of contagion was assessed. Overall, children avoided proximity to and contact with the sick confederate and her toys, but only 6- and 7-year-olds performed above chance. The best predictor of avoidance behavior was not age but rather children's ability to make predictions about illness outcomes. This provides the first evidence of behavioral avoidance of contagious illness in childhood and suggests that causal knowledge underlies avoidance behavior.
尽管有大量关于儿童对传染的推理的文献，但尚未有关于儿童避免接触传染个体的实证研究。本研究首次调查儿童是否会避开生病的个体。参与者为4至7岁的儿童，他们被邀请与两名同伙玩耍，其中一名同伙“生病”。之后，评估了他们对传染的认知。总体而言，儿童会避免靠近生病的同伙及其玩具并与之接触，但只有6岁和7岁的儿童表现高于随机水平。避免行为的最佳预测因素不是年龄，而是儿童对疾病结果进行预测的能力。这为童年期对传染性疾病的行为回避提供了首个证据，并表明因果知识是回避行为的基础。
