2-014 - Developmental Progression of Children's Reasoning About Others' Dispositions and Intentions

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Learning about others' social inclinations is an important part of development, as it is adaptive to seek out those who mean well and avoid those who do not. However, social evaluation is nuanced by the history and situational constraints of the actor. This symposium examines the developmental progression in children’s consideration of these intricate cues when reasoning about dispositions and intentions.

The first paper examines 9-month-olds’ consideration of action history: Infants preferred a consistently helpful character to a consistently hindering character, but showed no preference when a consistent character was pitted against an inconsistent character. Thus, when others act inconsistently, infants this age have difficulty evaluating them. The second paper investigates 17-month-olds’ extraction of social dispositions across different actions and their use of action history to predict future behavior: When actions were consistent, infants attributed a helping disposition to others, as well as a hindering disposition if provided with salient intentional cues. The third paper explores the role of social-group membership in 20-month-olds' attribution of dispositions: When action information was not available, infants used social affiliation as the basis for inferring certain dispositions. The final paper examines preschoolers' consideration of situational constraints: Like adults, preschoolers viewed a helping person less favorably when the person could have done a bigger good than when there was no such option. Thus, children now consider alternatives when evaluating others. Together, these papers reveal developmental progression in social reasoning as children integrate increasingly complex cues into their representation and reasoning of others’ action.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chairs

• Shinchieh Duh, San Jose State University

• Su-hua Wang, University of California, Santa Cruz

Individual Presentations

• 9-Month-Olds Fail to Generate Social Evaluations of Individuals Who Behave Inconsistently - Conor M. Steckler, University of British Columbia; Presenting Author: Brandon M. Woo, University of British Columbia; Kiley Hamlin, University of British Columbia

• Stronger Intentional Cues Facilitate Infants' Attribution of Social Dispositions - Presenting Author: Shinchieh Duh, San Jose State University; Su-hua Wang, University of California, Santa Cruz; Elizabeth J. Goldman, University of California Santa Cruz

• When Do Infants Generalize Dispositions Across Agents? Exploring the Influence of Social-Group Membership - Presenting Author: Megan Smith, University of California, Merced; Rose Scott, University of California Merced

• The Role of Choice in Moral Permissibility - Presenting Author: Sydney Levine, Rutgers University, Department of Psychology, Center for Cognitive Science; Alan Miller Leslie, Rutgers University