Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine two components of personalized inference, that is, process of inferring another person's mental appraisal about one situation and applying it to the other situation for making inference about emotional reaction. And another purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of personal information types and story conditions on children's personalized infernces. The subjects were 4-year-old(N=24), 6-year-old(N=24), second grade of primary school(N=24), and fifth grade of primary school(N=24) children. In each group, there were equal number of boys and girls. Subjects were told stories in which personal information and negative /positive types of events were varied, and they were asked to predict and explain hero(in)'s emotional reaction and :appraisal of target event. This experiment consisted of 4(age) by 3(story conditions : negative personal information /positive event, negative personal information /negative event, and positive personal information /negative event.) by 3(personal information types ; prior emotional reaction, prior behavior, and prior experience.) within subject design. The dependent measures were three response types ; personalized inference, situational inference, and transitional inference. These data were analyzed in terms of log - linear analysis and 2 - test. The results were shown as follows : First, the age-related differences in emotional inference types were significant, that is, personalized inferences increased with age while situational inferences decreased. Second, the differences in personal information type effects on personalized inferences were significant, that is, prior emotional reaction among personal information types was most influential in children's personalized inferences. Third, the differences in story condition effects on personalized inferences were significant, that is, 'negative personal information /positive event' condition was