The development of personalized inferences: understanding other people's emotional reactions in light of their prior experiences.

We examined children's ability to take another person's prior experiences into account when making inferences about that person's current emotional reactions. Kindergartners, second graders, fifth graders, and college students were told stories in which the first event might reasonably change the protagonist's appraisal of the second event. Subjects were asked to predict and explain the protagonist's appraisal of the second event. There was a gradual age-related increase in the ability to interpret an event from another person's perspective in light of that person's prior experiences. Various alternative explanations for this developmental trend are considered. These are evaluated using data from subjects who received prompts or who heard partial stories (containing only the first event or only the second event).