Tan Enda, Mikami Amori Yee, Hamlin J Kiley
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2018 Dec;176:39-54. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.07.003. Epub 2018 Aug 1.
Recent studies suggest that infants and toddlers evaluate others based on their prosocial and antisocial behaviors and engage in prosocial behaviors themselves. It is unknown to what extent infants' responses in such studies reveal stable individual differences in social and/or moral competence that persist throughout development. The current study (N = 63) demonstrates that infants' performance in sociomoral evaluation and action studies (mean age = 12 months) predicts social and behavioral adjustment at age 4 years. Specifically, a stronger preference for moral actions as an infant was associated with parent reports of fewer callous-unemotional traits, the domain most conceptually related to sociomoral evaluation and action, during preschool. Critically, preschool moral adjustment was uniquely associated with infants' sociomoral responding and not with other more general aspects of infant functioning. When 2 children with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis were included in the sample, correlations between infant and preschool functioning were more widespread. Taken together, these results provide evidence for developmental continuity in the sociomoral domain and suggest that infants' early behavioral tendencies may be building blocks for subsequent sociomoral development.
近期研究表明，婴幼儿会根据他人的亲社会行为和反社会行为来评价他人，并且自己也会做出亲社会行为。目前尚不清楚在此类研究中婴儿的反应在多大程度上揭示了贯穿整个发展过程的社会和/或道德能力方面稳定的个体差异。当前的研究（N = 63）表明，婴儿在社会道德评价和行为研究中的表现（平均年龄 = 12个月）能够预测其4岁时的社会和行为适应情况。具体而言，婴儿期对道德行为更强的偏好与家长报告的学前阶段较少的冷漠无情特质相关，而冷漠无情特质是在概念上与社会道德评价和行为最相关的领域。至关重要的是，学前阶段的道德适应与婴儿的社会道德反应独特相关，而与婴儿功能的其他更一般方面无关。当样本中纳入两名患有自闭症谱系障碍诊断的儿童时，婴儿期和学前阶段功能之间的相关性更为广泛。综合来看，这些结果为社会道德领域的发展连续性提供了证据，并表明婴儿早期的行为倾向可能是后续社会道德发展的基石。
