Senzaki Sawa, Cowell Jason M, Shimizu Yuki, Calma-Birling Destany
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Green Bay, WI, United States.
Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 Jun 10;16:867308. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.867308. eCollection 2022.
Moral reasoning develops rapidly in early childhood. Recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience literature suggests that the development of moral reasoning is supported by an integration of cognitive and affective components. However, the role of culture in the development of moral reasoning in young children is under-investigated. Previous cross-cultural research suggests that culture shapes how people interpret other's behaviors. In particular, people raised in independent cultures, such as the United States, tend to form impressions of others and attribute others' behaviors to their personal dispositions more quickly than people raised in interdependent cultures, such as Japan. In the present cross-cultural study, we examined parents' discourse with children in Japan and the United States. Parents and their 3- to 4-year-old children were asked to view and discuss cartoon characters depicting prosocial and antisocial acts. Results indicated that in both cultures, parents discussed about moral actions (e.g., helping, harming) of characters. Furthermore, United States parents were more likely to evaluate dispositional characteristics of characters based on their pro-social and anti-social acts, whereas Japanese parents were more likely to refer to emotion of the characters who got hurt. We discuss implications of cross-cultural differences and similarities in parental moral socialization and the development of moral reasoning in young children.
道德推理在幼儿期迅速发展。认知神经科学文献的最新证据表明，道德推理的发展受到认知和情感成分整合的支持。然而，文化在幼儿道德推理发展中的作用尚未得到充分研究。先前的跨文化研究表明，文化塑造了人们对他人行为的解读方式。特别是，在诸如美国这样的独立文化中成长的人，往往比在诸如日本这样的相互依存文化中成长的人更快地形成对他人的印象，并将他人的行为归因于他们的个人性格。在本跨文化研究中，我们考察了日本和美国父母与孩子的对话。要求父母及其3至4岁的孩子观看并讨论描绘亲社会和反社会行为的卡通人物。结果表明，在两种文化中，父母都讨论了人物的道德行为（例如，帮助、伤害）。此外，美国父母更有可能根据人物的亲社会和反社会行为来评估其性格特征，而日本父母更有可能提及受伤人物的情绪。我们讨论了跨文化差异和相似性在父母道德社会化以及幼儿道德推理发展中的意义。
