The development of abilities to infer others' dispositions in preschoolers

The present research examined whether preschoolers can infer others’ dispositions in explicit reasoning tasks. Children watched two types of events in which a circle, a triangle and a square interacted. In one, either the triangle or square helped the circle climb a hill. In the other, the other agent hindered the circle from climbing the hill. After watching the events, children were asked (1) to predict which agent the circle would approach in a novel context and (2) to infer which agent was nice or bad. The children had to provide either verbal or gestural responses to the questions. The results showed that 2.5-year-olds but not younger children could predict the circle’s preference-based action. When inferring the agents’ traits, only 3.5-year-olds succeeded in the task; They did so even when the helping agent’s action did not lead to the achievement of the circle’s goal. The results are discussed in terms of the distinction between the implicit and explicit levels of knowledge of others’ dispositions.

keywords: dispositions, traits, theory of mind, explicit knowledge, 성향 이해, 특질 이해, 마음 이론, 외현적 지식

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Article Contents

Vol.26 No.2

The development of abilities to infer others' dispositions in preschoolers

Abstract

Reference

Korean Journal of Psychology: General