New York University.
Victoria University of Wellington.
Child Dev. 2017 Nov;88(6):1786-1798. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12925. Epub 2017 Aug 24.
There is debate about the abstractness of young children's self-concepts-specifically, whether they include representations of (a) general traits and abilities and (b) the global self. Four studies (N = 176 children aged 4-7) suggested these representations are indeed part of early self-concepts. Studies 1 and 2 reexamined prior evidence that young children cannot represent traits and abilities. The results suggested that children's seemingly immature judgments in previous studies were due to peculiarities of the task context not the inadequacy of children's self-concepts. Similarly, Studies 3 and 4 revealed that, contrary to claims of immaturity in reasoning about the global self, young children update their global self-evaluations in flexible, context-sensitive ways. This evidence suggests continuity in the structure of self-concepts across childhood.
关于幼儿自我概念的抽象性存在争议，具体来说，他们的自我概念中是否包含（a）一般特征和能力，以及（b）整体自我。四项研究（N=176 名 4-7 岁儿童）表明，这些代表确实是早期自我概念的一部分。研究 1 和 2 重新检验了先前关于幼儿无法代表特征和能力的证据。结果表明，之前研究中儿童看似不成熟的判断是由于任务环境的特殊性，而不是儿童自我概念的不足。同样，研究 3 和 4 表明，与关于整体自我推理不成熟的说法相反，幼儿会以灵活、敏感的方式更新他们的整体自我评估。这一证据表明，自我概念的结构在整个儿童期具有连续性。
