The Development of Children's Judgments of What is Owned and Who Can Own

在日常生活中，我们经常做出与财产所有权有关的判断。这些判断中的许多都是如此之少的努力就发生了，以至于我们可能几乎没有意识到它们。例如，不需要太多思考就能判断停车场里的车是自己的，或者你的朋友拥有你看到的她戴的帽子。尽管如此，这些判断是重要的，对我们对物体的想法和感觉，以及我们如何(和是否)使用它们有广泛的影响。 这项拟议的研究通过探索幼儿如何思考所有权来考察所有权判断的早期发展。我们做出的一些最基本、最基本的所有权判断是对拥有什么的判断(例如，停车场里的汽车是拥有的；天空中的星星不是)，以及谁是所有者(例如，你的朋友拥有东西，蚱蜢不拥有)。我提出了四个系列的实验来检验儿童的这些判断。 其中一系列实验考察了幼儿对自然物品所有权的判断。先前的研究发现，儿童通常认为自然物品是无主的。例如，如果给孩子们看一块石头或一种不熟悉的植物，他们通常会断言这些东西不属于任何人。这方面的研究考察这些判断是否依赖于儿童对物体是否为人类制造的评估，以及他们对物体是否具有为人类服务的功能的评估。 另一系列实验考察了儿童是否判断某些东西不能被拥有。虽然像松果和岩石这样的自然物品通常不会被拥有，但它们很容易被拥有。相反，人们可能会否认有人可以拥有星星或月亮。这方面的研究考察了儿童是否也抵制将某些物体视为财产，这些研究还考察了这种判断是否(至少在一定程度上)源于物体是否可以被控制。如果孩子们认为所有者有权控制他们的财产，他们可能会否认不能控制的东西可以拥有。 另外两个系列的实验调查了孩子们对谁可以拥有房产的判断。其中一个系列考察了儿童对非人类实体(如动物、机器人)是否可以拥有财产的判断。这些实验还调查了儿童是否认为有生命力是成为所有者的先决条件，以及被拥有阻止了实体本身拥有东西。另一系列关于判断谁可以拥有财产的实验调查了儿童是否了解群体(例如，家庭或俱乐部)可以拥有财产。 这四个系列的实验将对所有权判断的早期发展提供信息，并将有助于揭示儿童对什么可以拥有以及谁可以拥有的判断是否依赖于对物体和实体的相当抽象和不明显的属性的评估。

In everyday life, we often make judgments that pertaining to ownership of property. Many of these judgments occur with so little effort, that we may be hardly aware of them. For example, it does not take much reflection to judge that cars in a parking lot are owned, or that your friend owns the hat you see her wearing. Nonetheless, these judgments are important and have wide-ranging effects on our thoughts and feelings about objects, and on how (and whether) we use them. The proposed research examines the early development of ownership judgments by exploring how young children think about ownership. Some of the most basic and fundamental ownership judgments we make are judgments of what is owned (e.g., the cars in the parking lot are owned; the stars in the sky are not), and who is an owner (e.g., your friend owns things; grasshoppers do not). I propose four series of experiments to examine these judgments in children. One series of experiments examines young children’s judgments about the ownership of natural objects. Previous research has found that children often assume that natural objects are non-owned. For instance, if children are shown a stone or an unfamiliar plant, they will typically assert that these things do not belong to anyone. The studies in this line of research examines whether these judgments depend on children’s assessments of whether objects are human-made and their assessments of whether objects have human-serving functions. Another series of experiments examines whether children judge that certain things cannot be owned. Although natural objects like pinecones and rocks are not normally owned, they can easily become owned. In contrast, people might deny that someone could own the stars or the moon. Studies in this line of research examine whether children also resist viewing certain objects as property, and these studies also examine whether such judgments stem (at least in part) on whether objects can be controlled. If children hold that owners are entitled to control their property, they might deny that non-controllable things can be owned. The two other series of experiments investigate children’s judgments about who can own property. One series examines children’s judgments of whether non-human entities (e.g., animals, robots) can own property. These experiments also investigate whether children think that animacy is a precondition for being an owner, and that being owned prevents an entity from itself owning things. The other series of experiments on judgments about who can own property investigates whether children grasp that groups (e.g., families or clubs) can own property. Together, these four series of experiments will be informative about the early development of ownership judgments, and will help reveal whether children's judgments about what can be owned, and who can own, depend on assessments of quite abstract and non-obvious properties of objects and entities.