The Development of Optimism in Preschool Age Children: Individual Differences and Implications for Resiliency and Mental Health

学龄前儿童乐观情绪的发展：个体差异及其对心理弹性和心理健康的影响

• 批准号: 9396160
• 负责人: LAURA HENNEFIELD
• 金额: $ 5.71万
• 依托单位: WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-11-01 至 2020-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9396160
• 关键词: 5 year old; Achievement; Address; Adolescent; Adult; Affect; Age; Automobile Driving; Belief; Child; Child Rearing; Cognitive; Coupled; Data; Development; Diagnostic; Disadvantaged; Disease; Elements; Empirical Research; Event; Exhibits; Face; Family; Future; Goals; Health; Health Benefit; Individual Differences; Knowledge; Learning; Life; Life Experience; Link; Maintenance; Major Depressive Disorder; Measures; Mental Depression; Mental Health; Methodology; Methods; Motivation; Nursery Schools; Outcome; Parents; Play; Population Heterogeneity; Prevalence; Probability; Process; Punishment; Reporting; Research; Resources; Rewards; Risk; Risk Factors; Role; Sampling; Socioeconomic Status; Specific qualifier value; Symptoms; Testing; Theoretical model; Time; Update; Weather; age related; aged; approach avoidance behavior; base; catalyst; child depression; cognitive process; demographics; depressive symptoms; early experience; experience; heuristics; high risk; improved; innovation; negative affect; optimism; outcome prediction; preventive intervention; racial diversity; resilience; social; socioeconomics; virtual

Project Summary/Abstract Optimism – a cognitive bias to overestimate positive future outcomes – may play a critical function in the early years of life, driving how children learn, confront challenges, and persevere in the face of setbacks. Roughly 80% of adults make optimistically biased predictions, and although optimism is adaptive and provides motivational, social, and health benefits, virtually no empirical research has tested how optimism develops. Further, the lack of an optimism bias – either presented as realism or pessimism – is associated with depression in adolescents and adults, and may be driven by early life experiences. My objective is to develop an integrated and systematic framework for the development of optimism in preschool-aged children, focusing on the role of early experience (positive and negative) on these processes, and specifying connections between early optimism and depressive symptoms/negative affect states. Estimates are that 1-2% of preschoolers exhibit symptoms that meet the diagnostic criteria for Major Depressive Disorder, whereas 9-12% exhibit sub-clinical symptoms. Further, these prevalence rates are likely higher in children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and when considering negative affect more widely. My predictions are that optimism is present early in a broad capacity and influences how children learn from and about the world. As they experience event outcomes, and probabilistic reasoning improves, the magnitude of their optimistic predictions diminishes. Further, divergent developmental trajectories may emerge such that optimism declines more steeply in children who experience more negative life events, compounding the disadvantages they face. Lack of early optimism may also be a key symptom of depression in preschoolers and/or perpetuate symptoms over development. Recent data from our lab indicate that at least a subset of preschoolers do have an optimism bias – they make optimistic predictions for events that concern themselves but not others – providing initial support for these predictions. The proposed studies will test 3- to 5-year-olds from racially and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds to determine how early optimism is expressed and maintained, socioeconomic and family factors affecting optimism, and how optimism guides learning in typically developing children and those with elevated depressive symptoms. I introduce new experimental methods to test optimism, learning, and probabilistic reasoning in preschoolers, coupled with extensive parent reports on family background, children's experiences, motivational approach, parenting style, and an established measure of child depression. Experimentally, I will test if children offer optimistic, accurate, or pessimistic predictions for event outcomes, assess domain and state-related variability in optimism, and determine if children incorporate new positive, but not negative, information into their beliefs about how likely an event is to occur (as optimistic adults do). These measures will also be administered to preschoolers oversampled for elevated depressive symptoms. The comprehensive approach outlined here uses innovative methodology to answer critical questions about the development of optimism. These studies will elucidate the scope and developmental trajectory(ies) of the optimism bias in preschoolers, and whether early risk factors for depression link to decreases in optimism. The findings also have the potential to point to markers of early resiliency and inform cognitive-based preventive interventions.

项目总结/摘要 乐观主义--一种高估积极未来结果的认知偏见--可能在儿童成长的最初几年起着关键作用。 生活，驱动孩子们如何学习，面对挑战，并在挫折面前坚持不懈。大约80%的成年人 乐观偏见的预测，虽然乐观是适应性的，并提供动机，社会和健康 虽然乐观主义有很多好处，但几乎没有实证研究测试过乐观主义是如何发展的。此外，缺乏乐观偏见-无论是 表现为现实主义或悲观主义-与青少年和成年人的抑郁症有关，可能是由早期 人生经历我的目标是建立一个综合的、系统的框架， 学龄前儿童，侧重于早期经验（积极和消极）在这些过程中的作用， 说明早期乐观和抑郁症状/消极情绪状态之间的联系。据估计，1-2% 的学龄前儿童表现出符合重度抑郁症诊断标准的症状，而9-12%的学龄前儿童表现出 亚临床症状此外，这些患病率在来自弱势背景的儿童中可能更高， 当考虑到负面影响时，我的预测是，乐观情绪在早期就广泛存在， 影响着孩子们如何从世界中学习和了解世界。当他们经历事件的结果和概率推理时 随着经济的改善，他们乐观预测的幅度就会减少。此外，不同的发展轨迹可能 在经历更多消极生活事件的儿童中，乐观情绪的下降幅度更大， 他们面临的不利条件。早期缺乏乐观也可能是学龄前儿童和/或青少年抑郁症的一个关键症状。 使症状持续而不是发展。我们实验室的最新数据表明，至少有一部分学龄前儿童确实有一种 乐观偏见--他们对与自己有关而与他人无关的事件做出乐观的预测--提供了最初的 支持这些预测。拟议中的研究将测试来自种族和社会经济多样化的3至5岁儿童 背景，以确定如何表达和维持早期乐观，社会经济和家庭因素影响 乐观，以及乐观如何指导典型发育儿童和抑郁症患者的学习 症状我引入新的实验方法来测试学龄前儿童的乐观，学习和概率推理， 再加上广泛的家长报告，包括家庭背景、儿童经历、激励方法、养育子女 风格，以及儿童抑郁症的既定措施。在实验中，我将测试孩子们是否提供乐观，准确，或 对事件结果的悲观预测，评估领域和状态相关的乐观变化，并确定 孩子们将新的积极的，但不是消极的信息纳入他们关于事件发生的可能性的信念中（如 乐观的成年人）。这些措施也将被管理到学龄前儿童过度抽样为升高的抑郁 症状这里概述的综合方法使用创新的方法来回答有关 乐观的发展。这些研究将阐明乐观偏见的范围和发展轨迹， 学龄前儿童，以及抑郁症的早期风险因素是否与乐观情绪的下降有关。研究结果还表明， 有可能指出早期复原力的标志，并为基于认知的预防干预提供信息。