Affective Processing of Moral Events: A Developmental Approach

为什么有些孩子在违反道德规范时会感到内疚，比如涉及身体伤害的情况，而另一些孩子却没有表现出任何悔意？了解道德背景下的情绪是如何形成的是很重要的，因为它们被发现是社会可接受行为的强有力的预测因素。此外，对道德事件缺乏适当的情绪反应已被证明与个人和社会的不良选择和负面结果有关。例如，人们发现，内疚感较低的人犯罪率更高，生产力更低，更容易患上病态。 在这个项目中，我们将使用发展的方法来测试儿童如何认知和情感处理道德事件，以及如何随着年龄的变化。我们将研究两个问题：第一，注意力分配与道德事件的情绪反应指数之间的关系; 2第二，实验性地操纵儿童注意的区域是否会改变他们的情绪反应。 为了解决第一个研究问题，我们将研究4岁，6岁和8岁的儿童。我们将观察他们的眼球运动，看看他们是否会注意到违规行为中的自我奖励元素（例如，偷来的巧克力条）而不是故事的其他面向元素（例如，巧克力棒被偷的孩子）。我们将研究这与他们自我报告的情绪反应，他们的运动表达（即，情绪面部表情），以及它们的生理唤醒（即，皮肤电活动）。使用我们的同步系统，它连接了我们所有的仪器，我们将测试注意力和自我报告的情绪之间的关系是否与生理唤醒和运动表达有关。为了研究第二个研究问题，我们将实验性地操纵对受害者的注意力分配，看看它是否会影响对这些事件的情绪反应。 鉴于目前缺乏关于这一主题的发展工作，我们的研究结果将是有价值的，及时的领域。这项研究计划将提供一个更丰富的图片之间的相互联系，注意，生理唤醒，情绪运动表达的情绪处理的道德事件，以及它们如何在发展过程中变化。这些知识有助于更好地理解儿童如何获得和处理有关道德事件的信息。从长远来看，这项研究计划将产生更多关于规范性情感和认知发展的知识。

Why do some children feel guilty when transgressing moral norms, such as situations involving physical harm, while others do not show any remorse? Understanding how emotions in contexts of morality are formed is important because they have been found to be a strong predictor of socially acceptable behaviour. In addition, the absence of appropriate emotional responses to moral events has been shown to be associated with poor choices and negative outcomes for the individual and society. For example, individuals with low levels of guilt have been found to be more criminal, less productive, and more commonly suffer from pathologies. In this project, we will use a developmental approach to test how children cognitively and affectively process moral events, and how this changes with age. We will study two questions: first, how attention allocation is associated with indices of emotional responses to moral events; second, whether experimentally manipulating the region toward which children attend alters their emotional responses. To address the first research question, we will study 4-, 6-, and, 8-year-old children. We will observe their eye movements to see whether they attend to self-rewarding elements of transgressions (e.g., a stolen chocolate bar) over the other-oriented elements of stories (e.g., child whose chocolate bar was stolen). We will study how this relates to their self-reported emotional responses, their motor expressions (i.e., emotional facial expressions), and their physiological arousal (i.e., electrodermal activity). Using our synchronization system, which connects all our instruments, we will test if the relation between attention and self-reported emotion is associated with physiological arousal and motor expression. To study the second research question we will experimentally manipulate attention allocation toward the victim and see whether it influences emotional responses to these events. Given the current scarcity of developmental work on this topic, our findings will be valuable and timely for the field. This research program will provide a richer picture of the interconnectedness between attention, physiological arousal, and emotional motor expressions underlying emotional processing of moral events, and how they vary across development. This knowledge can contribute to a greater understanding of how children acquire and process information regarding moral events. In the long run, this program of research will therefore generate more knowledge about normative affective and cognitive development.