Components of Young Children’s Trait Understanding: Behavior-to-Trait Inferences and Trait-to-Behavior Predictions

• Autores: David Liu, Susan A. Gelman, Henry M. Wellman
• Localización: Child development, ISSN 0009-3920, Vol. 78, Nº. 5, 2007, págs. 1543-1558
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Trait attribution is central to people’s naïve theories of people and their actions. Previous developmental research indicates that young children are poor at predicting behaviors from past trait-relevant behaviors. We propose that the cognitive process of behavior-to-behavior predictions consists of two component processes: (1) behavior-to-trait inferences and (2) trait-to-behavior predictions. Experiment 1 demonstrates that 4-, 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds can infer trait labels from behaviors. Experiment 2 demonstrates that 4-, 5-, and 7-year-olds can predict behaviors from trait labels but not from past behaviors. Experiment 3 demonstrates that 4- and 5-year-olds understand traits as predictive and stable over time. Taken together, these three studies show that young children, in possessing component trait-reasoning processes, have a nascent understanding of traits.