Department of Educational Psychology, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
Department of Educational Psychology, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2024 Sep;245:105960. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105960. Epub 2024 May 27.
Previous research shows that both adults and children by 5 or 6 years of age appreciate socially mindful actions where one leaves a choice for others. However, less is known as to whether children consider motivations in their evaluations of socially (un)mindful actions. Here we investigated whether children and adults can spontaneously evaluate socially (un)mindful behaviors depending on contextual cues, specifically whether the actions happen in public or in private. We also investigated how children evaluate these actions when provided with explicit information on motivations. We presented 99 children (aged 6-11 years) and 99 adults in China with two characters performing the same socially mindful or unmindful behaviors. One character acted publicly, whereas the other acted privately. Participants were asked to compare the two characters first spontaneously and then again after explicit information on the characters' motivations was provided. We found that whereas adults spontaneously favor private socially mindful acts, children favor public socially mindful acts. Only after motivations were provided did children favor private socially mindful acts like adults. In addition, we found asymmetry in that motivation seems to matter more in evaluations of socially mindful actions than in evaluations of socially unmindful ones. These findings are the first to reveal children's consideration of motivations in their evaluations of socially mindful behaviors.
先前的研究表明，5 或 6 岁的儿童和成年人都赞赏那些为他人留下选择的具有社会意识的行为。然而，对于儿童是否会根据动机来评价社会上（不）有意识的行为，人们知之甚少。在这里，我们调查了儿童和成年人是否可以根据情境线索（具体来说，行为是在公共场合还是私人场合发生）自发地评价社会（不）有意识的行为。我们还研究了当提供有关动机的明确信息时，儿童如何评价这些行为。我们向 99 名中国儿童（6-11 岁）和 99 名成年人展示了两个角色执行相同的具有社会意识或无意识的行为。一个角色公开行事，而另一个角色私下行事。参与者被要求首先自发地比较两个角色，然后在提供有关角色动机的明确信息后再次进行比较。我们发现，成年人会自发地偏爱私下进行的具有社会意识的行为，而儿童则会偏爱公开进行的具有社会意识的行为。只有在提供了动机之后，儿童才会像成年人一样偏爱私下进行的具有社会意识的行为。此外，我们还发现了一种不对称性，即动机在评价具有社会意识的行为时似乎比在评价具有社会意识的行为时更为重要。这些发现首次揭示了儿童在评价具有社会意识的行为时会考虑动机。
