Department of Early Child Development, Faculty of Education, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
PLoS One. 2022 Apr 20;17(4):e0266539. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266539. eCollection 2022.
Self-conscious emotions, such as guilt and shame, motivate the adherence to social norms, including to norms for prosociality. The relevance of an observing audience to the expression of negative self-conscious emotions remains poorly understood. Here, in two studies, we investigated the influence of being observed on 4- to 5-year-old children's (N = 161) emotional response after failing to help someone in need and after failing to complete their own goal. As an index of children's emotional response, we recorded the change in children's upper body posture using a motion depth sensor imaging camera. Failing to help others lowered children's upper body posture regardless of whether children were observed by an audience or not. Children's emotional response was similar when they failed to help and when they failed to complete their own goal. In Study 2, 5-year-olds showed a greater decrease in upper body posture than 4-year-olds. Our findings suggest that being observed is not a necessary condition for young children to express a negative self-conscious emotion after failing to help or after failing to complete their own goal. We conclude that 5-year-olds, more so that 4-year-olds, show negative emotions when they fail to adhere to social norms for prosociality.
自我意识情绪，如内疚和羞耻，促使人们遵守社会规范，包括亲社会规范。观察到的观众对负面自我意识情绪表达的相关性仍知之甚少。在这里，在两项研究中，我们调查了被观察对 4 至 5 岁儿童（N=161）在未能帮助有需要的人后和未能完成自己目标后情绪反应的影响。作为儿童情绪反应的指标，我们使用运动深度传感器成像摄像机记录了儿童上半身姿势的变化。无论儿童是否被观众观察，未能帮助他人都会降低儿童的上半身姿势。当孩子们未能帮助他人和未能完成自己的目标时，他们的情绪反应是相似的。在研究 2 中，5 岁儿童的上半身姿势下降幅度大于 4 岁儿童。我们的研究结果表明，对于年幼的孩子来说，在未能帮助他人或未能完成自己的目标后，被观察并不是表达负面自我意识情绪的必要条件。我们得出结论，5 岁的儿童比 4 岁的儿童更会在未能遵守亲社会规范时表现出负面情绪。
