Young children are more likely to attribute mental states to characters that belong to the same group as them relative to characters that belong to an outside group, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study shows that 5- and 6-year-olds were more likely to describe interactions between two characters in terms of what they were thinking and feeling when the characters had the same gender or geographic origin as them.
发表在《心理科学》杂志上的新研究结果表明,年幼的孩子更容易自发地把心理状态归因于他们自己的群体,而不是外部群体的特征。该研究表明,5-6岁的孩子更容易描述他们正在想着和感受着的两个特征之间的相互作用,当这些特征有着和他们一样的性别或地理来源时。
“We found that young children were selective in the way they attribute mental states – they were less likely to spontaneously refer to the mind of individuals belonging to a different group,” says researcher Niamh McLoughlin of the University of York. “Our research suggests that, at least from the age of 5, children demonstrate a bias that might be similar to dehumanization – ascribing fewer mental abilities and uniquely human traits to others. In addition, this work illustrates that there are situations in which children are more or less motivated to reason about the minds of other people.”
“我们发现了幼儿对他们的心智状态进行归因的选择方式——他们不太可能自发参考那些属于不同于他的群体之个体的心智。”纽约大学的研究者Niamh McLoughlin说。“我们的研究认为,幼儿至少在5岁时可能显示出了类似于非人性化(dehumanization )的偏见——将较低的心智能力和独特人性特质归咎于他人。”此外,这项工作表明,有些情况下,儿童或多或少有目地的去思考别人的想法。
Previous research has shown that adults tend to dehumanize people who belong to social groups or categories – for example, race, gender, socioeconomic status – that are different from their own. These “outsiders” are seen as having less intelligence, rationality, and emotional depth relative to those who belong to the in-group. McLoughlin and University of York co-author Harriet Over were interested in investigating the developmental origins of this phenomenon.
先前的研究已经表明,成年人倾向于让隶属于社会团体或类别的人去人性化(dehumanize ),例如,种族,性别,社会经济地位,这些不同于他们自己的特征。这些“局外人”相对于那些属于“群体”的人来说,被认为是智力、理性和情感深度较低的人。McLoughlin和约克大学的合著者Harriet Over对非常有兴趣研究这种现象的发展起源。
“Our aim was to examine whether young children also exhibited this bias with relation to mental state attribution,” says McLoughlin.