Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo.
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome.
Dev Psychol. 2022 Sep;58(9):1676-1686. doi: 10.1037/dev0001380. Epub 2022 May 5.
Why do some children feel happy about violating ethical norms whereas others feel guilty? This study examined whether children's attention to two types of competing cues during hypothetical transgressions related to their subsequent emotions. Eye tracking was used to test whether attending to other-oriented cues (i.e., a victim's face) versus self-serving cues (e.g., a stolen good) related to kind and selfish emotions. Participants were 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds ( = 224; = 6.85 years; 51% girls), whose first language was primarily English (80%), and whose primary caregivers mainly reported backgrounds from Asia (40%) or Europe (39%). Overall, almost all children spend more time attending to selfish than other-oriented cues. Latent difference score modeling revealed that higher scores on attentional orientation (i.e., more other-oriented attention compared with self-serving attention or smaller gaps between the two) was significantly related to more kind, but not selfish emotions. This relation remained across age groups. Furthermore, with age, children attended somewhat less to self-serving cues. These findings highlight attention's importance in developing kind emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
为什么有些孩子违反道德规范时会感到高兴，而有些孩子则会感到内疚？本研究考察了儿童在涉及假设违规行为时对两种类型的竞争线索的关注，这些线索与他们随后的情绪有关。眼动追踪用于测试关注他人导向线索（即受害者的脸）与自我服务线索（例如，被盗物品）是否与善良和自私的情绪有关。参与者为 4 岁、6 岁和 8 岁的儿童（n=224；平均年龄为 6.85 岁；51%为女孩），他们的第一语言主要是英语（80%），其主要照顾者主要来自亚洲（40%）或欧洲（39%）。总体而言，几乎所有的孩子都花更多的时间关注自私的线索，而不是他人导向的线索。潜在差异得分模型显示，注意力取向得分越高（即与自我服务注意力相比，更多地关注他人，或两者之间的差距更小），与更善良的情绪显著相关，但与更自私的情绪无关。这种关系在所有年龄组中都存在。此外，随着年龄的增长，儿童对自我服务线索的关注程度略有下降。这些发现强调了注意力在发展善良情绪中的重要性。（美国心理协会，2022）
