Abstract

The present study examined whether preschoolers are able to employ the discounting principle in the attribution process. Kindergartners, first and third graders, 40 subjects each, were asked to listen very carefully to several stories in each of which an actor performed a nice behavior. They were then asked to answer three questions intended to measure inferences about the cause of the actor's behavior, estimation of the degree or his internal motive, and prediction about the same future behavior. More internal causes were attributed to actors who did a nice behavior without any anticipation of reward than to those who did in expectation of reward. The same pattern or results emerged in a comparison of the actors who were given verbal rewards to those who received tangible rewards. Kindergartners inferred more internal causes in the behavior of actors who received unexpected tangible rewards than in the behavior of actors who were given expected tangible rewards. These subjects also revealed internally or externally biased discoill1ting effects and only 10% of them seemed unsystematically applying the discounting principle. Taken together, these findings suggest that given plausible causes of a behavior, kindergartners encode relevant information about the behavior and then use the discounting principle. Finally, significant correlations were obtained among three measurements: Causal inferences of behavior, estimation of internal motives and predictions about the same behavior.