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.

项目摘要/摘要 乐观情绪 - 高估积极未来成果的认知偏见 - 可能在早期的早期起关键功能 面对挫折，生活，驱动孩子的学习方式，面对挑战和坚持不懈。大约80％的成年人 乐观的偏见预测，尽管乐观情绪是适应性的，并提供了动机，社会和健康 好处，几乎没有实证研究已经测试了优化主义的发展方式。此外，缺乏乐观偏见 - 要么 以现实主义或悲观的形式表现出来 - 与青少年和成年人的抑郁有关 生活经验。我的目标是为发展乐观的发展开发一个集成而系统的框架 学龄前儿童，专注于早期经验（正面和负面）在这些过程中的作用，以及 指定早期乐观与抑郁症状/负面影响状态之间的联系。估计是1-2％ 学龄前儿童展示符合重度抑郁症诊断标准的符号，而9-12％的符号 亚行式符号。此外，在不利背景的儿童中，这些患病率可能更高，并且 当考虑负面影响时，影响更广泛。我的预测是，乐观情绪以广泛的能力和 影响儿童如何向世界学习。当他们体验事件结果和概率推理时 提高了其乐观预测的大小会减少。此外，发育不良的轨迹可能 出现，在经历更多负面生活事件的儿童中，乐观情绪更加陡峭 他们面对的缺点。缺乏早期乐观也可能是学龄前儿童和/或 长期存在于发育中的症状。我们实验室的最新数据表明，至少一部分学龄前儿童确实有一个 乐观偏见 - 他们对关注自己而不是他人的事件做出乐观的预测 - 提供初始 支持这些预测。拟议的研究将测试来自种族和社会经济上的3至5岁儿童 确定早期乐观表达和维持的背景，社会经济和家庭因素影响 乐观情绪，以及乐观的指导如何指导典型发展的儿童和抑郁症患者的学习 症状。我介绍了新的实验方法，以测试学龄前儿童中的乐观，学习和概率推理， 再加上有关家庭背景，儿童经验，励志方法，育儿的大量父母报告 风格，以及对儿童抑郁症的既定测量。在实验上，我将测试孩子是否提供乐观，准确或 对事件结果的悲观预测，评估乐观的领域和与状态相关的变异性，并确定是否是否 儿童将新的正面而不是负面的信息纳入了他们关于事件发生多大可能发生的信念（如 乐观的成年人确实如此。这些措施也将向学龄前儿童进行，以备抑郁 症状。这里概述的全面方法使用创新方法来回答有关 乐观的发展。这些研究将阐明乐观偏见的范围和发展轨迹（IES） 学龄前儿童，以及抑郁症的早期危险因素是否与乐观下的减少联系在一起。调查结果也有 潜力指出早期弹性的标志并为基于认知的预防性干预提供信息。