Young children's preference for mental state versus behavioral descriptions of human action.
Young children's preference for mental state versus behavioral descriptions of human action.
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1467-8624.1990.tb02816.x
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发表时间：
1990-06
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Angeline S. Lillard;J. Flavell
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Angeline S. Lillard;J. Flavell
传统上，幼儿被认为是关注外部环境、缺乏内部状态知识的小行为主义者。相比之下，最近的一些研究表明，他们对精神生活的理解确实从根本上是正确的。孩子们可能经常关注外部因素，这不是因为他们不知道内部因素，而是因为在测试环境中，外部因素对他们来说更容易获得。我们的研究询问，当精神状态描述同样可用和突出时，3岁的儿童是否更喜欢用行为术语来描述人类的行为。3岁的孩子们拿到了3张不同颜色的同一张照片的复印件。第一个副本参照图片中人物的精神状态进行描述，第二个副本参照人物的行为进行描述，反之亦然。然后第三个副本被展示出来，孩子被要求告诉木偶关于这张图片--有效地，在精神状态描述和行为描述之间进行选择。在两项研究中的每一项中，20名3岁的孩子做出了12个这样的选择。在这两项研究中，儿童倾向于选择心理描述的频率明显高于行为描述，即使行为描述有更好的图片支持。这些发现表明，在可供选择的选项相同的情况下，年幼的儿童可能更喜欢用精神状态而不是行为来描述人。
Young children have traditionally been conceived of as little behaviorists who focus on the external and lack knowledge of internal states. In contrast, some recent research suggests that they do have a fundamentally correct understanding of mental life. Children may often focus on the external, not because they are unaware of the internal but because in test situations the external has been more cognitively available to them. Our studies asked whether 3-year-olds prefer to describe human action in behavioral terms when a mental state description is made equally available and salient. 3-year-olds were presented with 3 differently colored photocopies of the same picture. The first copy was described with reference to the mental state of the person in the picture, and the second copy was described with reference to the person's behavior, or vice versa. Then the third copy was presented, and the child was asked to tell a puppet about this picture--effectively, to choose between the mental state description and the behavioral description. In each of 2 studies, 20 3-year-olds made 12 such choices. In both studies, children tended to choose mentalistic descriptions significantly more often than behavioral ones, even when there was better pictorial support for the behavioral ones. These findings suggest that, given equally available options, young children may prefer to describe people in terms of their mental states rather than their behaviors.