Department of Psychology, University of York.
Psychol Sci. 2017 Oct;28(10):1503-1509. doi: 10.1177/0956797617710724. Epub 2017 Aug 22.
We investigated whether young children were more likely to spontaneously attribute mental states to members of their own social group than to members of an out-group. We asked 5- and 6-year-old children to describe the actions of interacting geometric shapes and manipulated whether the children believed these shapes represented their own group or another group. Children of both ages spontaneously used mental-state words more often in their description of in-group members compared with out-group members. Furthermore, 6-year-olds produced a greater diversity of mental-state terms when talking about their own social group. These effects held across two different social categories (based on gender and geographic location). This research has important implications for understanding a broad range of social phenomena, including dehumanization, intergroup bias, and theory of mind.
我们调查了幼儿是否更有可能自发地将心理状态归因于他们自己的社会群体成员，而不是外群体成员。我们要求 5 岁和 6 岁的儿童描述相互作用的几何形状的动作，并操纵儿童是否相信这些形状代表他们自己的群体或另一个群体。与外群体成员相比，两个年龄段的儿童在描述内群体成员时更自发地使用心理状态词。此外，6 岁的儿童在谈论自己的社会群体时使用了更多种类的心理状态术语。这些影响在两个不同的社会类别（基于性别和地理位置）中都存在。这项研究对理解广泛的社会现象具有重要意义，包括去人性化、群体间偏见和心理理论。
